This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Historical_Bit_3781 on 2026-08-15 05:16:04+00:00.

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My mother used to tell me not to bite my nails. She would hate it every time she saw me gnawing on my nails, trimming them with nature’s natural nail clippers. She would slap the back of my head or my hand just to get me to stop. Of course, once she left, I would go right back to biting them.

I don’t know why I do it. I guess it was a force of habit. One I adopted from a very young age. I’m sure there might have been a good reason why I did it back then. Maybe they were too long and ugly or too sharp. I don’t know. I’ve forgotten at this point. Now all I know is that when I look at my hands and see my nails, I feel drawn to just put them between my teeth and chew them off.

Chomp, chomp, chomp. Shearing them off.

Of course, I’d take out the dirt under my nail if I ever saw it. I’m not an animal. I would dig it out with the edge of a paper or anything thin enough that would fit under my nail. Then when the gunk was out, I’d chew it off. I’m sure there would still be germs and bacteria or whatever, but at least I’m not chewing off the whole chunk.

After biting off my fingernails, I would always have to wait for my nail to grow back before I could go back to biting them. They had to be the perfect length before I could start biting. A nice piece of nail with lots of white showing. That’s when you know it's good. When you can put it between your teeth, and you can feel the gap between the nail and where the flesh of your finger is.

Chomp, chomp, chomp.

But I think I found out why our moms keep telling us this.

I wish I hadn’t. I wish a friend of mine or someone else experienced this, and I witnessed it. A scared straight kind of thing.

It happened on a regular weekend.

I sat at my desk in my room and played games on my PC. I was on a horrible losing streak on more than one game. Luck wasn’t on my side. I just kept getting shit teammates. I mean, it had to be them. It’s always them.

I had just lost a match on Marvel Rivals. A frustrating match where I had an amazing performance but my team just wasn’t pulling their weight. I slammed my fist onto my desk, making my keyboard and all the little objects on my messy desk jump.

“Son? Is everything okay up there?” My mom called from downstairs.

“Yeah! Sorry, Mom,” I yelled back. “It’s nothing!”

I loosened my fists, letting them rest on the table. That’s when I noticed my nails. They had grown to just the right size. Ripe enough to sink my teeth into.

I began with my left hand’s index finger. I always do. Habit.

I bit down on the left edge of the nail, using my four front teeth. I heard the small snapping sound it made as the nail separated from the main nail and the sound of my teeth colliding. I moved my mouth away from my finger. It was wet now with all of my saliva. The nail hung from the remaining piece that clung to the main nail.

I went back in and bit from the middle this time, which produced that same clipping sound. I moved my head away again and saw it still clung to the main nail. One more bite should do it.

I bit it off, freeing the nail. The nail sat in my mouth. I ran my tongue on it, feeling the jagged edges made from my bites. Then I turned my head away from my desk and spat the nail out.

I’m never sure where it goes. My mom usually finds it when she goes about sweeping the house. She would always give me a tongue-lashing for it.

I continued with the next nail–my middle finger.

Chomp, chomp—

Before I could get to the last bite that would sever the nail from my finger, my mom had slapped me on the back of my head.

“Ow!” I said, rubbing the back of my head.

“Don’t bite your nails,” she said, pointing her finger at my face.

“Fine, fine. I won’t”

“Mhm, okay,” she said as if she didn’t believe me. “Well, I’m going to the store now. Do you want anything?”

“Can you get me some Ladyfingers?”

“Funny,” she said without the slightest hint of a smile and walked out of my room.

I listened as she walked downstairs, hearing the creak of the old wood with each step. I heard the door open, the screech of old hinges. Then I heard the door shut and felt the vibration of the force.

I went right back to biting my nails.

I bit off all the nails on my left, following the same process. Then I went onto my right hand. Starting with the index, going down towards the pinky, then jumping right back to my thumbnail.

I bit into the left edge of my thumbnail, as I do with every nail, and heard the clipping sound. I continued to the middle of the nail. Chomp, clip. And finally I got to the last part of the nail. Chomp, clip.

But the nail didn’t come off. It stuck to my finger, hanging on by a thin piece of skin.

A hangnail.

I hated when that happened. I put the skin between my teeth and pulled. However, it didn’t come off. The skin pulled off from the fold of flesh next to my nail until it was right above the cuticle. Blood began to spring from my finger and fell onto my desk.

I stuck my finger in my mouth, sucking the blood and applying pressure to my finger with my teeth. I got up and went to the bathroom. When it stopped bleeding, I bit the hangnail off from my finger, leaving a smaller piece of skin sticking off from my finger.

A smaller hangnail.

That was where I should have stopped. When I should have gone on with my day.

But I hated the sight of it. I hated seeing the skin hang from my finger. It kept bothering me like an itch. I just had to scratch it. I had to continue until there was no hangnail.

I pulled on the hangnail with my teeth. I traveled up to the joint of my finger. I could see the white meat underneath my skin. Blood pooled over it. I cursed again and sucked on my finger like a hungry vampire, taking the blood back into my body. I felt the long piece of skin tickling the roof of my tongue.

I had to stop. I knew I had to.

But I couldn’t.

I continued pulling. It traveled up my hand, to my wrist, up my forearm, past my elbow, and reached my bicep. I rolled up my sleeve and continued, but it reached my shoulder. So I took off my shirt. I pulled past my shoulder, down my chest, past my belly button, beyond my privates to my thighs, past my knees, down my shin, to my feet, and to my big toenail.

But it didn’t stop.

It curved back up, going back to my thumb and then curved around, going back down to my toenail.

I was skinning myself. Unraveling my skin like a mummy. The thin piece of flesh running up and down my body like a zipper, opening the skin jacket of my body.

But I couldn’t stop. I wanted the hangnail gone. I wanted it gone, gone, gone. I pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled until there was no more hangnail.

Until there was no more skin.

I snapped out of my trance with the sharp rip of the final piece of skin coming off my body. Blood poured from every part of my body. The pain of my exposed meat hit all at once.

My skin lay on the floor of the bathroom. It coiled up like loose yarn beside my discarded clothes.

What had I done?

Panic rose in me. I staggered backwards, slipping on the blood that collected on the tiled floor of the bathroom. Pain ruptured through my body from both the impact and the burn from my exposed flesh coming in contact with the floor. I cried out in pain, wailing like a banshee.

I had never felt so much pain in my life. Not when I cracked my head open after falling off my bike. Not when I got a black eye from Bobby Hartman. Not even when I broke my leg.

This pain was different.

I curled myself into a ball. An instant jolt of pain came from the contact of meat against meat. It somehow hurt more than falling on the floor.

I crawled over to my pants and found my phone in my pocket. My hands burned touching the phone. I tapped the screen–a bloody print left in the center. The phone lit up, and I tried to swipe up. But with my fingers all bloodied, the phone spazzed the same way it would if water touched it. It opened onto the password screen, and I tried to type in my password. My fingers were too bloody. So I raised my phone and tried to let the facial recognition unlock my phone.

But it didn’t work.

Oh my god, it didn’t fucking work.

I pushed off against the floor; my palm left painful, bloody handprints on the floor. I then got my feet under me, pain pulsing with each movement. When I finally stood up, I looked into the mirror and saw how I looked. It was like straight out of a horror movie.

I had skinned myself alive.

My phone dropped out of my hand, landing on my foot. I began to jump up and down. My bloody foot made disgusting slapping sounds as it smacked against the tiled floor. Each landing hurt more than the last.

Tears rolled out of my eyelid-less eyes and burned as the salty water touched my fleshy cheek, making me cry even more.

I was in so much pain. So much fucking pain. I wanted it to stop. I begged and prayed for it to stop.

I stared at myself through the mirror.

I was naked. Truly naked. Rid of both clothes and skin.

I was cold. Even in this summer heat with a busted AC unit, I was cold. I shivered. My arms instinctually wrapped against my body to shield the cold, but it stung as I touched my exposed flesh. I winced, and my arms flew out from my body.

But I was so cold.

I looked over to the bathtub and took a step towards it. A flare of pain pulsed on the bottom of my foot. I raised my leg and took another careful, slow step. Another flare. I had to prepare myself...

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