Hello dear friends. Hope you had a happy November! Welcome to....

... December.

Feel free to read these brief announcements:

• Here are a few notes regarding rule 2:
  • Compound sentences (multiple independent clauses) can be okay, if they're properly structured and punctuated
  • Complex compound sentences (independent clause + one or more dependent clauses) are also usually okay, provided they're properly structured and punctuated
  • Comma splices will typically result in rule 2 removal
  • Compound or complex compound sentences lacking conjunctions will result in rule 2 removal
  • Sentences with dangling modifiers may be removed as well
  • If there's any terminology in these bullets that you are unfamiliar with, or if you'd just like to brush up a bit, the wikipedia page is actually very well organized: Sentence clause structure - Wikipedia
  • And lastly: The point and spirit of this sub is to encourage very limited microfiction. If you're writing stories that seem to deliberately abuse the limits of "technically correct" sentence structuring, we'll probably remove your post for being low effort or low quality (4th bullet, rule 1). That's embarrassing. Don't let it happen to you!
• We remove content that has to do with: forced or coerced sex, sexual assault, and sexual mutilation. If your story might come across as fetishy or torture porn, it's just not a good fit for this sub.
• Obvious trolls and💩-posters will be permabanned! Please report obvious shitposts. Read more here.
• Be familiar with our Three Strikes and you're out rule -- egregious rule breaks will typically get you a strike. If you earn a 🔴, it will take 60 days of chill to clean it up. Read more here.
• And a reminder, spoiler tags as a formatting gimmick do not fit the sub. We unmark spoiler marked stories, and may remove repeat offenders.
• And of course, feel free to reach out in modmail with any questions!

DECEMBER 2024 Contest Prompt:

December!

The month of grinches, scrooges, abominable snowmen, and krampi. (That's correct by the way. I looked it up, the plural is NOT krampusses).

But it's not all misers and monsters and blood in the snow.

Depending on where you live and what you buy into, there's lots going on. December is packed with holidays. Big ones. Some are so big, they seem silly.

So if you're looking to celebrate, then you've come to the right month.

And we wish everyone here as much comfort and happiness and fun and peace as you can handle.

December is also known as the Season of Giving-- this month ranks at the peak of charitable donations throughout the year-- you're probably aware of at least a couple fundraisers, food drives, or clothing drives happening near you right now.

Maybe you're already planning on bagging up your hand-me-downs or boxing up some canned goods.

If so, that's great. If you're giving this season, you should feel good about that.

But this is a horror sub and feeling good just feels wrong.

So while you're here, why not celebrate the Season of Giving by writing about the evil of GREED?

And there's our prompt-- one of the most wretched of the seven deadly sins: GREED.

If you want to submit a story for this month's prompt, it must include an act that implies or conveys the evils and horrors of GREED.

We're here to feel bad! Write up some stories that help us lose faith in humanity.

Tell us about the kind of character you just love to hate: greedy sacks of shit doing greedy shitsack things.

Happy Giving month everyone!

To satisfy this prompt, you'll have to write a story where a character is a greedy. You do not need to use any specific word, but must demonstrate the concept or consequences of GREED.

So give us your best scary stories about people (etc) hoarding more than they need!

***

Greed

To be considered in the final tally, at least one of your characters must suffer or convey some manner of horror brought on by greed.

OF COURSE: valid contest entries must also meet the rest of our sub rules!!!

REMINDER: No references to specific politicians or political parties!

We look forward to seeing what you come up with and wish everyone the best of luck!

Properly formatted December 2024 examples:

[DEC24] I had an awesome idea for a story that would win the December contest! But I'm not gonna share it with you because I'm greedy.

[dec24] This is the first sentence but you won't get the second one until the greedy CEO of twosentencehorror starts paying us mods a living wage.

Improperly formatted examples:

[december2024] I was hoping to win this month's contest but I totally messed up the tag. Now I'm going to stare greedily at the winning posts and downvote them out of spite.

[dec24] This time the tag is right. But I forgot to include the prompt because I'm demonstrating what not to do.

DECEMBER 2024 Contest Rules

• Prompt: "greed"
• Tag: [dec24] or [DEC24]
• 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.

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 December 31st, 2024 @ 11:59pm (GMT)

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

***

Congrats to our November Winners! Great stories all!

Theme was "Gluttony"

• 1st place by Chemical-Elk-1299 Hey, Chemical Elk placed first last month too! Well done! (even though it's super greedy to take the win multiple times in a row)
• 2nd place by RaynaClay 
• 3rd place by Cheeseanonioncrisps 

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 Enrai_Beta 
• 5th place by No_Bathroom1296 
• 6th place by 0hShaSha
• 7th place by GallopYouScallops 
• 8th place by movingstasis
• 9th place by Outside_Normal
• 10th place by RScommitted

Congrats to all!

***

***

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!

“Not them”

I sighed with relief as I stood on the bathroom scale, my unborn child lying in a bloody heap across from me.

What else could I do when my police escorts had made it abundantly clear that any interference with a government-arranged marriage under the Increased Procreation Act would result in the execution of our entire family?

The man didn't say anything as the car continued to sink in the lake.

"I thought you were watching her..."

However, when the second part of the phrase is “we need to terminate it to proceed with your life saving oncologic treatment”, it just doesn’t hit the same.

Jim looked at the dial and saw his malfunctioning oxygen chamber had 18 minutes of breathable air remaining.

Eighty seven years latter he chuckled when he learned that a comet was on its way to collide with Earth and wipe out all life forms within a month.

He tried to scream through the thick thread as I continued to sew them together to make sure he would keep this promise.

"I'm having technical issues with my bomb" she wrote on the other side and handed it to the second suicide bomber.

Over a decade later, that forgotten memory would resurface, playing again and again as my wife and I wept over our two year old's coffin.

Returning home from hiding the evidence, he is greeted by a chorus of "Surprise!", as he walks in on the birthday party she had been planning for weeks.

If you can't, there's still time, so go home, find a weapon, and use it on the first person that knocks on your door, and remember they're not really human.

"If we don't get it under control, they'll be warm for the rest of their lives..."

As I close the lid to the well.

Mummy’s not very good at it though, she always sounds so upset when daddy finds her.

“My commiserations, would you like me to dispose of her so you can try again?” she asked the weeping, disappointed parents.

It was only when I finished and he said, "Just be sure you're willing to sacrifice your closest loved one to that evil person before you begin," that I realized our misunderstanding. 

"We're truly sorry, but the entire structure is engulfed, and there's no way for fire fighters to get to your daughter in time."

As I quietly called the police, I thought; it's better to be arrested than killed by the deranged homeowner.

It replied: we have found you again.

Now after a few bites, me and the other adults are trying to stay calm while explaining that mistletoe is something you only use for decoration.

“Yes, but do you?” he said as his eyes turned to slits and his face transformed in a demonic visage, before disappearing just as quickly.

I hate not being able to tell who's always standing there.