The Many Faces of Tully
Beauty Queens and Snakes

Of course my next appearance isn’t going to help at all with the ‘no emotionally attached’ thing. I’m tall, about six feet, with long curly blonde hair. I have a small delicate nose, full red lips, and my eyes are the most intense blue imaginable. I am fit, and busty. I’m gorgeous. Men drool when they see me.

I live in Pennsylvania now, and I start to hate my powers even more. It’s like they know when to help me, and when to break me. I need to learn how to control them. So I start taking yoga classes and meditating. I know my explosions have something to do with my racing heart. That’s what it starts with, so I need to learn how to control my heart rate. If I can do that, then I can stop hurting people.

It isn’t long before modeling agencies are knocking on my door. I take the job, only because I am starting to need money. I still have a lot, but more is always good, especially if I’m going to have to move around a lot. I have to be prepared.

I am entered into a beauty contest, and I obviously win. The runner up got very angry though, and grabbed my hair and yanked it as soon as we are off stage. It happened in an instant and the nine girls surrounding me are dead. No one will remember me after I leave. No one will know what happened. No one ever does. Only I do.

I turn to the girl who pulled my hair. She has a belly button ring so I take it. I get my stomach pierced with that ring the very next day, on my nineteenth birthday.

My hair is auburn, my eyes are hazel. I am average height and weight again. My nose is wide, my lips are thin. I wonder what torture this appearance will bring me. It takes me a year to replace out.

I am working in an ordinary office in Ohio and I am feeling good. I’m not drawing attention to myself, and no one seems interested in me. I have befriended one of the guys in the office, but that was it. I will never let it go further than friendship. I know what could happen to him if we get too close. Also, he is married, but that turns out to be a bad thing.

One night I am working late, and his wife comes to confront me.

“You’re Tully, right?” she asks. She has short spiky pink hair, gauges in her ears, and tattoos covering both of her arms. There is a snake tattooed around her neck, and it’s eating its own tail, making it look like a necklace.

“Yes, I am. And you are?” I ask her.

“Someone you don’t want to mess with,” she says menacingly. Her nose is pierced like a bulls and her bottom lip is pierced twice. I think those kinds of piercing are called snake bites? Maybe she likes snakes or something.

“You don’t want to mess with me either,” I tell her truthfully. She hears it as a threat.

“Mark hangs out with you a lot after hours. I can only assume one thing.” She starts reaching into her back pocket.

“You’re wrong. It’s nothing like that. It’s strictly platonic,” I tell her. She doesn’t believe me. I wonder what Mark told her.

“You’re not going to see him anymore. You got that?” She pulls out a knife from her back pocket.

“You don’t want to do this,” I try to warn her again. I can already feel my pounding heart.

“Yes, I do,” she says, and licks her lips. I see her tongue is split, making it look like a snakes’ tongue.

This time is different. I think the word ‘snakes’ and everything starts turning into snakes. The staplers, the tape dispensers, pens, pencils, and the cords. All of the cords connected to the phones and computers turn into long snakes. Then I feel myself changing.

My arms jerk to my sides, and my legs snap together. I feel my body lengthen and curl around. My head stretches out and when I open my eyes, I am looking at her with snake eyes. My tongue flicks out and I can taste her fear. I am a predator, she is my prey. I see her eyes widen as I open my mouth to show my fangs. I hiss, and lunge at her.

When I wake up, snakes are slithering across my body. I get up quickly and calmly. I look at her and see the two large puncture wounds on her neck. One on either side of the snake tattooed there. I shiver and run away again.

My body changing is different, I recall later that night. The explosion was normally how my body changed. I would explode and be in a new body, but this time I remember shedding my snake skin, shedding until I no longer had scales. Shedding until I was in a new body.

In my pixie, dirty blonde hair, five foot, seven inch, athletic body, I walked into the tattoo parlor and get my wrists tattooed. I don’t want to tattoo my neck so I compromise and get both of my wrists tattooed with the snake bracelets.

The tattoo artist tells me conversationally that it is called an Ouroboros. He said they symbolize cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly recreating itself. Like the phoenix, which works in cycles that begin as soon as they end.

I love the tattoos after he told me that. That’s who I am. I begin as soon as I end. I am constantly recreating myself. I am a snake biting my own tail. A never ending cycle of death and a new face.

I move further west than I have ever been. Iowa will be my new home, I decide. I will stop in a random town, rent an apartment and replace a job. Start a new life, and try to keep to myself. But after killing her, I began to ask myself why. Why is this happening to me? Why do I have my powers? What do they mean? I want answers.