I'm working on an animation in after effects (I'm pretty new to this, so bear with me if this is an obvious question), and I want my letters to slither away like snakes. I already have them formatted so that each letter is composed of a single continuous line (here's a picture: postimg.org/image/3vynhvmq9). The puppet warp tool is kind of what I'm looking for, but it stretches out part of the letter, and instead I would like the back end of the letter to follow when I pull on the other end. I hope it's clear what I'm looking for, feel free to ask for clarification if it isn't. Thanks in advance for any advice.
Sorry that I didn't see this until now. It may be quite challenging to set up/control, but you might want to take a look at the Snake plugin, available as part of http://omino.com/pixelblog/2014/04/13/omino-plugins-2-1-for-after-effects/
Pay close attention to the comments on that page, as there are important tips available about how Snake works.
I've used this plugin to do stuff very similar to what you're wanting to do.