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Carl wasn't having a good day to begin with, and getting lost in an unfamiliar coastal city

at night promised to be the cherry on the cake of his day. When he walked down an alley

which turned into a dead end, Carl was disturbed to hear footprints growing louder behind

him. He turned to see an approaching male figure in a hoodie close on him, produce a

handgun, and demand money.

"Let's not start this," countered Carl. "I seem to have lost my

way, and made a wrong turn. Let me pass, and I'll be on my way. No foul, no error," he

offered.

"Fool!," replied the confronting man. "The guy with the gun makes the rules, not

you!," he taunted. "Now give me your wallet before I mess you up!," he demanded, waving the

gun for emphasis.

Carl raised his hands in a disarming gesture of apparent surrender. "I can

feel your anger and your need," Carl recognized, "and in a sense, I can identify with them,"

he continued. "You see, I've got a dark side myself." The gunman failed to comprehend his

victim's remarks, and was baffled by the slight smile which briefly crossed Carl's face.

So intent was the would-be robber upon his gun and his intended victim's hands and face that he

failed to notice a tentacle, perhaps the thickness of a thumb, snake down the Carl's pants

leg and slither silently in the deep shadows along the ground towards the gunman. The

inhuman appendage wound its way undetected around the robber's feet, rising thereafter to the

height of his extended gun arm. With a fast, snake-like movement, the tentacle then whipped

itself repeatedly around the man's arm.

"What the..." marveled the gunman, uncomprehending

even as the tentacle began its contractions. The muscular organ pulled the assailant's arm

back, then further back still beyond the arm's intended range of motion. The arm held for a

short period of time, then a crack was heard as the bones within broke. The gunman screamed

as he suffered a compound fracture, his weapon dropping from a now useless arm.

"You've got me right where I want you," mused Carl as a second tentacle emerged, this one from the juncture

where his shirt was tucked into his pants at the waist. Not trying for stealth, the tentacle

snaked its way through mid-air at chest height, and wrapped itself firmly around the other

man's torso, holding him in an iron grip.

"It really was helpful when you presented yourself

to me," said Carl to the disabled and struggling man. "It's been a long and frustrating day,

and I was growing rather peckish" confessed Carl. "I really wasn't looking forward to

hunting this late. Making a wrong turn down a blind alley turned out to be rather

serendipitous for me. And I do so love the irony that you intended me to be your victim

whereas you became mine!"

"Man...or whatever you are," pleaded the victimizer turned victim.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have messed with you," he cried. "Just let me go, man, I promise I

won't say nothin'," he begged.

Carl shook his head slightly in the negative with a faint

expression of amusement. "I'm afraid it doesn't work that way," he corrected. The tentacles

held the man tightly, almost in a lover's embrace. A suckered pad sprouted from one tentacle

and stroked the man's cheek slightly in almost a tender gesture before the pad attached

itself tightly to the man's head.

"Ah, the sweet aroma of fear," observed Carl, his animal

senses delicately sniffing the air. "Sauce for the goose!," he enthused. "And now, I'm

afraid that it's time for you to die! ," stated Carl matter-of-factly as he slowly began to

unfasten the center buttons on his shirt.

The robber watched uncomprehendingly as Carl's skin

beneath the opened shirt was exposed, and then seemed to momentarily pucker inward. With

explosive force a third tentacle then erupted from the indentation, this one as thick as a

man's fist. It instantly bridged the gap between Carl and where the robber was held

immobilized, piercing the hapless man's chest cavity. There were wet, sucking sounds as body

fluids and liquified internal organs were transported from the robber as nourishment into

Carl via the tentacle. The thief's face registered a few moments of agony and astonishment

before he succumbed to the sweet mercies of death.

In a short while the feeding had been completed, the drained husk of a man was cast aside,and

the tentacled arms retreated back into the body of the creature which passed in the world of men

as Carl. He closed his eyes and basked in the feeling of the fresh infusion that he had just received.

He would need to return now to the sea, where Carl would cast off his human appearance and swim

joyfully in his cephalopod form. Evolution had provided Carl with some peculiar and useful adaptations

but it would yet be some time before his kind would be ready to openly challenge the land-dwellers

for dominance...