I woke up with a distinct sense of motion and wasn't freezing anymore. Was I in a car? The shadowy scenery was definitely passing by. The seatbelt a tad constricting. I tapped around to get better sense of surroundings. Right. This was definitely not a car. The demon was carrying me, saying nothing. I stared up at the silhouette of horns which were faithfully keeping vigil ahead and firmly ignoring me.

Annoyance overtook me. I proceeded to play drowsy idiot - which I mostly still was – and slapped the creature around some more, eventually landing my palm onto what should have been its face, wondering what the ancient horror looked like under that.

Teeth clamped down on my knuckles and I pulled the hand back. Angry red scratches reached all the way to the fingertips and one nail could have been missing. I held back a yowl and slew of curses. The whole of it could have come off clean, had he wished so. Was it worth it? Absolutetly.

I slammed same wounded palm back onto creature's rumbling chest, which he apparently didn't mind, and proclaimed, "You spoil me, good sir! I could get used to traveling like this." I got him bloody. The well-worn scraggly leather beneath my hand was rough and crusty though, so it didn't make me feel any better. It had to be just a drop in sea of what already was caked in on it.

"We can keep your legs permanently broken to make this an ongoing arrangement," after just a moment's thought he said softly, as much as that was possible for something whose entire chest was rumbling to create sound. He did not speak with his mouth.

I made a sour face at the expense of his blindness and almost didn't say it. But ended up nodding, "Mhm. Anything to avoid slogging through this landscape. Carted around like a royalty – by a monster, no less. Who else on the entire planet could brag about this?" A lot of dead people, that's who. Hopefully I'd piss him off enough to join the ranks soon.

Creature didn't reply. Whether he was getting annoyed or hungry, there was no indication at all.

So perhaps we both agreed to keep my lower body continuously mangled, but it wasn't getting any worse right now. I didn't even feel much pain because everything went numb from hours of being kept still. Nobody was mentioning the elegant breakdown I've inadvertently displayed. Life was good.

I could have asked where we were going, but didn't really want to know. Meanwhile, nothing bad ever happened in transit. Cocked my head backwards and stared at the night sky. Light pollution was much less of an issue since the grid had failed. Most cities still maintained the power with some effort, but it was costly endeavour. In any case, I was nowhere near those. Started humming while stargazing and began falling asleep again. It's probably been a while since I was carried... if ever?

... Vertigo hit me like a brick. Then again. It took me a while to catch on. The monster was jumping around. Something out there in complete blackness screeched and the steady ticking changed into a constant, reverberating growling. It echoed like there was an empty cave within him. I felt like I'm hanging off a precipice. Fear rose. I wanted to get away from the monster holding me, even if it meant leaping straight into another one. The echoing was insane, impossible, nauseating.

Something in the dark didn't get the clue and lurched at us again. The creature which carried me just leapt away again and trudged along without even tightening hold on his lovable bundle. In fact, never once has he even jostled me to rearrange as though the arms never got tired. One more reason to hate these inhuman blow-ins.

"Ha! You suck!" I shouted at whatever it was following in a deliberate attempt to antagonise it. Perhaps the new creature could eat this one, and save me some heartache. Even I heard it scuttle around. On many many legs. A much longer atrocity.

Scampering thing lurched forward again, immediately to be outpaced by the one on two feet. Angry hissing came from all over the place, tippy tapping noise multiplied too – even from up ahead. Shit was getting real and he was walking... right at it? Could he even see where he was going, through all this noise? This was probably going there anyway, but I didn't exactly desire to be carried into some big maw.

I turned away from the blackness back to my associate, "He probably took offence to what you did to the shoes. Those aren't sandals, yo."

There was another flat pause and I was starting to get disappointed my jabs weren't landing anywhere at all. It was far harder to cope when even my out loud thoughts just bounced back to me.

Eventually echoing growling formed into, "I'd grow actual eyes to see that thing wearing shoes."

The air rushed out of me in almost a laugh. Relief. But, yeah. The thought appealed to me as well. If I was going to be killed by an unspeakable abomination, I'd want it to at least wear something ridiculous. Flip-flops and a hat? Make that terrifying.

"Your fashion sense is not to be lauded either," I admonished. "Ragged cloak? Middle Ages ended centuries ago."

"They're making a comeback," the reverberations told me and I frowned. And just whose fault was that?

Without giving me chance to retort, he'd slammed into something instead of leaping away like usual. Hissing was still universally present so it had to happen sooner or later. This was it, then. I put all my brainpower into imagining straw hats on them both.

"Ladies, ladies! No need to fight, there's enough of me for everyone," I bravely yelped, enduring another slam, hiss, gurgling roar, crunching, slurping and something wet dribbling down onto me. It felt irritating on my skin and outright burnt the fresh scratches.

While I wasn't concentrating, it was all over and my cabbie sprinted away from all the noise. I was still rubbing the mystery liquid off my skin onto both mine and his clothes. Mostly his.

"You flatter yourself. There's barely enough of you for an animal," collected grumbling informed me.

"Depends on the animal," I shot back. "There are no bears around or anything. Rest would need a group to finish me in one sitting."

"If there was, perhaps you humans wouldn't be so pathetic now."

Then we'd probably be extinct, but I conceded the point in favour of a more optimistic reality, supplied by the ancient dread.

There was more noise in the dead of night, but just one another thing dared to challenge the porter. That one was resolved much quicker and less eventfully. And I couldn't even tell how. Perhaps they... talked it out? I didn't even get a chance to be a smartass.