Item #: SCP-4597

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-4597 is contained within a Standard Humanoid Containment Cell. SCP-4597's hands are to be encased in fitted gloves filled with polymer gel #MCN119, refreshed daily. A plexiglass partition divides the cell between SCP-4597 and SCP-4597-A.

Description: SCP-4597 is a young human male suffering from dermatillomania1.

SCP-4597's skin possesses accelerated, if flawed, regenerative properties. Observation has shown that regeneration takes only a few minutes even when entire sheets of skin are torn away; however, due to this, large portions of SCP-4597's dermis are heavily scarred and discolored. Additionally, the dead cornea stratum layer is abnormally thick, ranging from 5-120 mm depending on location, with SCP-4597's lips, fingers, toes, and knees exhibiting the thickest layers.

SCP-4597's dead skin is abnormally difficult to cut or pierce without the use of either metal tools, lasers, or SCP-4597's teeth or nails; it also becomes gradually thicker and more durable each time it heals. SCP-4597 partially circumvents this durability by exploiting weak points such as ingrown hairs, new calluses, existing notches, or water-softened areas in order to continue its self-destructive behaviors. The living dermis exhibits no unusual durability.

Once removed from SCP-4597, the dead skin becomes animate. Dead fragments will wriggle before ultimately joining an existing sapient, amorphous pile of skin fragments in the shape of a large (currently 3 m tall) dust mite with elongated limbs (SCP-4597-A), held together with dried blood or pus.

During initial observation of SCP-4597 while sleeping, SCP-4597-A was seen using its mandibles to bite thinner areas of SCP-4597's skin, creating small notches, and using rough edges of its skin portions to sharpen SCP-4597's fingernails. In response, current containment procedures were enacted.

Following separation from SCP-4597-A, SCP-4597 has exhibited signs of anxiety, while its condition has slowed significantly, with large sections of skin beginning to heal and decrease in thickness. Conversely, SCP-4597-A has begun to act erratically, hitting itself against the partition repeatedly, and peeling and chewing on parts of itself with its mandibles.

Footnotes

1. A mental disorder where one repeatedly and compulsively picks at or peels the skin.