Limitless Evolution As a Snake

She reaches out, her fingers hesitating an inch from my face. Then she presses her palm flat against my scales.

The contact is electric. A clean, shocking heat that sinks right through the new keratin, past the bone, straight into my cold-blooded brain.

It shimmers, like someone dumped glitter on a snake and then set the snake on fire, except the fire doesn’t hurt; it just kind of tingles in the best way possible.

Cherry scrambles back so fast she nearly headbutts the wall.

"Oh, my god." Her hands fly to her mouth, her voice cracking three octaves higher. "Oh my god, oh my god, what is? Hold on, hold on, don’t move, don’t die, wait, are you dying, is this dying?"

I want to tell her I’m pretty sure this is the opposite of dying, but my mouth still isn’t working right, so all I can do is lie there and shimmer like a disco ball having a religious experience.

My old scales start peeling back from my head first, curling away in one long unbroken sheet, like I’m a banana that decided to skip the middle steps and just unzip itself. Underneath, everything’s dark and wet and new.

Cherry makes a sound like a kettle going off. "Snakes don’t do that. Snakes don’t shimmer; that’s not, that’s not a normal shed, sheds are supposed to be gross and papery; this looks like, like that old-fashioned vampire movie, the one where the guy sparkles. Why are you sparkling?"

She freezes mid-sentence, spins around, and dives face-first into a pile of trash bags stacked against the wall.

I can’t turn my head to watch, but I can hear her searching through garbage like a raccoon on a deadline, muttering the whole time. "Notebook, notebook, where’s the- aha!"

She returns clutching a savaged spiral notebook and a chewed-up pencil stub. Flopping down cross-legged, she balances the notebook on her knee and starts scribbling so fast the graphite practically smokes.

"Okay, okay, subject continues shedding," she mutters, not even looking up. "Shed pattern non-standard, shimmer effect present, possible bioluminescent protein or reflective keratin layer, need to test under UV, oh my god this is so weird, snakes don’t do this, why is this snake so weird, why is this the weirdest snake I have ever-"

Her horn stumps twitch. Both of them, at the same time, like tiny antennae picking up a signal only she can feel.

The shed keeps coming off in one long, slow peel, working down my body inch by inch. It doesn’t hurt, not exactly, more like the world’s longest exhale. My tail’s the last part to go, and when the old skin finally slides free of the tip, Cherry gasps loud enough that I feel it more than hear it.

[System: Righto, mate, that’s the shed done and dusted. Give the lady a look, tell me what you reckon.]

I do.

My new scales catch the crappy fluorescent light and throw it back like polished glass. Deep crimson red. Ceramic-smooth. The kind of shine you’d find on a sports car, not a snake whose ribs were gravel last night.

My tail stretches out long and clean, perfect, except for the last seven inches. That part feels different. Softer. Almost velvet when it brushes against my coils.

[System: Aight, quick rundown. Outside: perfect. Genuinely cooked to fuckin’ perfection, mate, hundred out of a hundred, new scales are harder than my ex-wife’s heart and twice as shiny. Inside: yeah, nah. Sixty per cent. Something’s still bleeding in there around the ribs. Sleep it off. Point is, you look dead sexy, but your insides are still a wet sock, so don’t go picking any fights today.]

Cool. Great. Love that for me.

Bulletproof on the outside, leaking on the inside, basically a walking metaphor for every guy who’s ever said "I’m fine" while dying a little on the inside.

Cherry’s stopped writing. She’s just staring at me now, pencil hovering over the notebook, mouth slightly open.

"Your face," she whispers. "Your face is red. Like, pretty red. Like, unfairly red."

I flick my tongue out, just a little, testing the air, testing her. She smells like candy and nerves and something underneath that’s gone soft with relief.

She reaches out slow, like she’s not sure if I’ll bite, and presses her palm flat against the side of my head.

Her hand is warm. Warmer than I expect, warmer than anything’s felt in a while.

I lean into it without really deciding to, pushing my head against her palm the same way a cat shoves its face into your hand when it wants attention and isn’t going to ask nicely for it.

Cherry makes a tiny sound, somewhere between a gasp and a laugh, and her horn stumps twitch so hard I feel the vibration through her wrist.

"Oh." Her thumb gently strokes one of my scales. "Oh, okay. Okay, you’re, you’re soft now. You’re warm. That’s, that’s not what I expected."

Her relief evaporates. Her grip on my head tightens just a fraction. "You’re not allowed to leave. You promised."

I don’t remember promising anything, but I’d do it now in a heartbeat.

[System: If you don’t wife this one, you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought. Deadset, I’ve seen cult leaders get less devotion out of their followers.]

"Thank you." My voice comes out a deep, cracked rumble—the sound of a guy who just lost a bar fight but is buying the next round anyway.

Her cheeks go red. "It’s nothing. I mean, I couldn’t just leave you. That would be bad."

She looks down, her fingers tracing the frayed cover of her notebook.

I pull the corners of my mouth back, hoping it passes for a smile. "You did good, love."

She chokes on her own breath. The blush goes nuclear, straight down her neck and into the top of the sundress.

[System: Smooth. Classic mafia prince move, mate. Keep it up, and she’ll be bringing you breakfast in bed by tomorrow.]

She tries to recover, but fails. "I—I’m not. I mean, I’m not really good at this. I just, I read a lot. About first aid. And, um, snakes."

"Oh? You like snakes?" My head tilts, letting the light catch my new scales. "What about them do you like?"

She giggles. It’s tiny, but real. This is very cute, i want to stay like this forever, if this is hell, sign me up.