The Taller Shell

Chapter 1: A Limb Less Deep The phantom itch is what woke him. Sheriff Lefty Suleman uncoiled from his restless perch on the sunken gallows---his customary sleeping spot---and reached with a mindless, sleepy appendage to scratch his left flank. Where there should have been the familiar, muscled weight of his leading tentacle, there was only a void. A cold, water-filling numbness. He jerked fully awake, seven limbs flaring in a cloud of silt and alarm. There, on the seabed beneath him, lay the evidence: a clean, precise cut near his base. No shreds, no struggle. Just the smooth, grievous amputation of his leftmost arm. His namesake arm. The one that had pinned badges on deputies and placed nooses on outlaws. The one that held his own star, tucked safely within its suckers. Gone. To steal, or not to steal---that was the thief's creed, the thought rose in a measured, rhythmically bitter pulse. But to take a man's arm? A villain's deed indeed. What noble rogue of this aquatic age, would wage so personal a war, and leave not gore but... stage? His eyes, dark and intelligent, scanned the murk. A single glimmer caught them. Not a scale, not a weapon. A pearl button, perfectly round, resting where his limb should have been. A calling card. A rage, colder than the abyssal plain, settled in his beak. This wasn't just theft. It was a demotion. An announcement to all of Abyss Gulch: the Sheriff could be disarmed.