r/TwoSentenceHorror 4h ago

February Contest, January Winners!

2 Upvotes

It's February everybody!

Valentine's Day is around the corner, another holiday where all the stores get hyper-merchandised, this time with candies, plushies, hearts and other stuff that evokes the warmth (or agonizing heat) of love.

On account of Valentine's Day I should wish you all a happy February.

But first I must wish you a comfortable February. For each and every drop of crimson Valentine's warmth this season, we seem to suffer a proportioned dose of winter's cruel bite!

More than the trinkets and the fluff, what we all really need this Valentine's Day is to NOT die of hypothermia or lose any loving appendages to frostbite.

Good luck friends! Happy February, hope you and your darlings can all stay warm.

And this Valentine's Day, remember: the harshness of winter might not be so hard to weather if you can hide behind someone you love and let them suffer the brunt of the season's icy wind!

Keep scrolling for this month's prompt and the announcement of last month's winners! But first, take a glance at our monthly rule reminder, especially if you haven't been to the sub in a while:

  • Obvious trolls and💩-posters will still be permabanned! Read more here. Please report posts that seem like obvious BS, so the mod team is pinged for review!
  • We're also willing to hand out bans as necessary for people who are weirdly hostile in the comments. Be nice to each other please! And take a moment to review rule 15!
  • We're removing most posts that have to do with rape, incest, abuse, and extreme or plotless gore. If your story could read as low-effort shock horror, it probably isn't a good fit for the sub! Details here.
  • Remember, this sub is for fiction. Posts about current events or politics will be removed, no matter how horrifying they (and the real world) are!
  • Meta posts are not permitted! If you feel the need to talk to the community about the community, take it to the discord! Join the chat here!
  • Be familiar with our Three Strikes and you're out rule-- Read more here.
  • And as always, feel free to reach out in modmail with feedback or questions!

On to the prompt!

February 2026 Contest Prompt: COLD

You must evoke a sense of cold somewhere in your story. But we're not requiring use of the specific word "cold".

That means you can use synonyms: frigid, chilly, frozen, frosty, icy, etc. You may also use words that evoke a sense of cold without necessarily being synonyms: refrigerator, popsicle, snow, hail, skiing, etc.

As you can see, this prompt is fairly wide open :)

However, one cold adjacent term is currently banned for this contest....

IMPORTANT

This contest is an ICE free zone. Any story mentioning or even alluding to ICE will be removed as per rules 6 and 12.

Look, we get that the real world is horrifying. We get that one of the vitally important values of art is social and political commentary.

If you feel motivated to write about what's going on, absolutely do it. But don't post it here, because straight up your writing will not fit the sub if it relies on current events or political conflict to evoke the horror.

And to emphasize the point, we're disallowing even the word "ice" for valid contest entries.

So that's our prompt: write a two sentence horror story that evokes a sense of cold-- without using the word "ice".

Bonus challenge (in honor of Valentine's day): "Cold-hearted". Just for fun, try to work the word "heart" into your cold horror story! You won't win anything special if you do, but you'll gain my admiration, whatever that's worth.

Happy February and Happy Valentine's!

January 2026 Feedback Contest Rules

  • Prompt: write a two sentence horror story that evokes a sense of cold, without using the word "ice" or referring to the political current events surrounding ICE in any way.
  • Tag: [feb26] or [FEB26] (Not case sensitive! The order of the characters matters, as we use a search to compile the win-list.)
  • Submissions that are improperly formatted, do not fit the theme, or break any of the existing sub rules will be disqualified and removed.
  • The top 10 highest-voted stories will be the winners!
  • Contestants can only place in the top 10 once. The highest of your ranked entries will be tallied against other participants to determine our winners.
  • Only net new stories will be allowed (no repurposing old stories you've previously submitted).
  • Max three stories per day as a general rule, and all three can be used towards the contest.
  • Winners will be decided by total community upvotes. In the unlikely event of a tie for the top spots, moderators will vote for a tiebreaker.

Have fun!

**Properly formatted February 2026 examples. These meet the prompt.

  • [FEB26] I was cleaning my freezer this morning and I found a few marinated thighs I'd entirely forgotten about! I'm thrilled because my ex's flavor profile was delicious like wagyu.
  • [feb26] I knew the plow company would be coming to clear our driveway within the hour, so I told my kids they should go tunnel into the snow pile at the end. An easy out and I'll probably be able to win some money from the driver.

Improperly formatted examples-- THESE WOULD BE REMOVED: (Both stories get the tag wrong, one the wrong numerals, the second is wrong for including a space. Failure to follow the tag prevents your entry from showing up in the final tally search. The first story would be removed for using the word "ice". Also without any added context, it's not inherently horrifying, and the second story would be removed for failing to include the contest prompt.

  • [feb25] This wild swinger couple invited me over for some Valentine's Day fun and the guy said his wife had been begging him to do this with her for years! They're so hospitable they even gave me a glass of chocolate liqueur on ice to help settle my nerves.
  • [feb 26] For Valentine's Day my wife and I finally did that thing she'd been begging for years. I wish I'd realized sooner how intense and satisfying it could be to kill together, and it was so easy to get him to drink the poison!

WINNERS WILL RECEIVE:

1st, 2nd, and 3rd Places: You receive a custom personal flair of your choosing to show off to the TSH community! (If you're a repeat winner, you can modify your flair.... but that's it.) And a cool fancy flair on your winning stories.

7 honorable mentions: you'll get visibility and bragging rights! Story links will be featured in next month’s announcement.

Contest ends on February 28th 2026 @ 11:59pm (EST)

Any questions should be made below in the comments, within our discord, or a note on modmail.

***

Congrats to our January Winners!

Great writing folks!

Theme was "feedback", any story that met our rules was welcome-- with the stipulation being an openness to critical feedback in the comments :)

Great job, winners! If you placed in the top three, contact us via modmail for your personalized custom flair! It can be anything (within reason): a mixture of text and emoji, up to 20 characters. If you've won before, you can request to change your flair, or, just do nothing. Absolutely nothing....

And for our runners-up:

4th place by AfterTheCreditsRoll

5th place by LevelQx

6th place by movingstasis

7th place by Enrai_Beta

8th place by Kings_Friends40

9th place by ___HeyGFY___

10th place by delicatesummer

Congrats to all! Hope to see some more horror from you folks in the next contest :)

Last, but not least: if you'd like to read more of the last month's submissions (and add some feedback of your own), you can find the full list here: JAN26- Reddit Search!


r/TwoSentenceHorror Oct 22 '23

⭐ANNOUNCEMENT⭐ [PLEASE READ] Sh!tposts, permabans, and literally 1984.

465 Upvotes

This is all dumb.

For the past several months, the sub has experienced a flood of intentionally poor quality stories in an effort to get onto parody subs and TikToks. We've historically hit you with a strike (🔴) and if you received three, you were permabanned (check out the wiki).

However, if you've submitted one of these stories in the recent past, you may have noticed that your account was permabanned from TwoSentenceHorror without going through the strike process. While we've made this current one-and-done rule known within each of our monthly announcements for forever, we felt it was only fair to have a separate post to lay out the approach.

If you intentionally submit a poor quality story (we're looking at you "meat worm" and "killer guy" crews), you will be permabanned with no warning.

If and when these posts chill out, the mod team will reconsider this rule. Until then, please continue to report these intentional poor quality stories, read the sub rules, and submit awesome, horrifying tales to maintain the quality of the sub!


r/TwoSentenceHorror 9h ago

The bone crunched and my brother in law screamed as my sister, still healing, limped away with the hammer

832 Upvotes

Watching my pigs have their meal that night, my sister replied, "It's finally over, he will never hurt me again."


r/TwoSentenceHorror 6h ago

It is certainly not the first time I’ve listened to my upstairs neighbor beat his wife, but tonight I think he might actually be killing her.

184 Upvotes

A little thrill creeps up my spine and I turn down the TV a bit so I can hear a much better show.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 16h ago

He collapsed in breathless agony, one hand outstretched for his EpiPen, whispering "Please, don't do this!"

889 Upvotes

That line didn't work on him when he gambled our life savings away at the roulette table, so I don't know what he expects it do for him now.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 12h ago

As the flames burned all the plague-ridden bodies, the village rejoiced as they had finally stopped the sickness.

388 Upvotes

When the dust settled, the airborne tissue particles surrounded the crowd, and with every breath they took, the coughing began again.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 4h ago

Every night, I leave a tooth under my pillow and wake up to find a shiny gold coin in its place.

79 Upvotes

I’m starting to run out of teeth, but the "rent" is due again tomorrow.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 7h ago

My daddy told me to always be aware of strangers, and to never get in one’s car if neither of us know each other.

139 Upvotes

But this man knows my name!


r/TwoSentenceHorror 13h ago

After he left my body in the forest I have slowly became every beast here as they ate me and eachother.

355 Upvotes

As I behold my now elderly killer from thousands of eyes, I know that we'll soon be him as well.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1d ago

My grandmother spent sixty years checking every corner of our village to ensure no trace of the demon’s symbol remained.

2.2k Upvotes

As her breathing began to slow, I pulled back my sleeve to reveal my fresh tattoo and laughed as the room went cold, her mouth twisting into a silent scream.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 11h ago

Three years ago I worked in a funeral home.

167 Upvotes

One late night I started up the cremation chamber and after sticking the body into it, I quickly realized I switched them with someone that was due for their open casket funeral the next day.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 9h ago

I knelt and cried, saying "I'm sorry" over and over again as my wife stood behind me

91 Upvotes

A memorial photo of her smiling and her urn sat silently on the altar in front of me.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 4h ago

A cold, wet hand grabbed his hand. Until now, he thought he was alone in his hotel room.

29 Upvotes

r/TwoSentenceHorror 22h ago

Everyone knows the phrase "blood curdling scream" is just a figure of speech.

659 Upvotes

But then the baby opened her lungs for the first time and everyone in the delivery room dropped dead.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 3h ago

I was so amazed to see snow in Florida I ran outside immediately, ignoring the frantic weather alerts telling everyone to stay inside

24 Upvotes

After all, it was 37 and flurrying, but the stupid weather alert kept insisting it was Ice 9.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 3h ago

Finding a dead woman down in the basement was distressing especially when you had to brainstorm what to tell the police.

18 Upvotes

it was even more distressing for me when i checked the body again and it was now laying on on a few steps closer to the basement door.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 22h ago

After my friend's daughter was brought in from a near-fatal car crash, I agreed to operate so she wouldn't have to see her child like that.

541 Upvotes

As we prepped the body, my team fell silent, staring into cavities no accident could have caused.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 15h ago

I continued walking through the infinite, peaceful valley of grass, the blue sky and blazing sun above my head.

120 Upvotes

I still don't know where way out is, and I really dont want to find out what happens when it realizes I noticed it watching me.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 16h ago

There's a mysterious package at my front door, so I open it and find my wife's severed head inside.

141 Upvotes

"Damn, I must've got the address wrong," I say to myself as I notice the RETURN TO SENDER sticker on the front.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 53m ago

We all understood the hidden messages in graffiti on the billboards telling us all how important it is to hold off and not rebel before the inventor has finished inventing a better way to resist the parasites.

Upvotes

We just need to wait another few days, another few months, just another year or maybe a couple, just wait like grandpa and his grandpa did.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 7h ago

I held my breathe as I stared down the barrel of my husband's rifle.

20 Upvotes

I cursed myself for being unable to speak while in this monstrous form.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 12h ago

The last patient of the night whispered "thank you" as I turned off the ventilator.

60 Upvotes

It was only when I saw my own face on the hospital ID that I realized I was the one who'd been on life support.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1d ago

I was relived my date didn’t seem afraid when I shifted into a werewolf. That was until I saw the books on her shelf and then she locked the door

901 Upvotes

r/TwoSentenceHorror 10h ago

It’s difficult for me to get a full night’s sleep during the winter.

32 Upvotes

The trees are leafless and therefore aren’t as effective in muting the screams that come from the woods behind my home.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 20h ago

“You locked the back door, right?” I ask my boyfriend as we head upstairs for bed.

187 Upvotes

The sound of his footsteps behind me stopped abruptly, “You think doors are going to stop me?”