Am I still writing other stuff? Yes. Could I pass up an opportunity to figure out a difficult character to write? Absolutely not. Netflix!Isaac deserves more love!

Day 1: Africa/Meeting Dracula

Blood. Pain.

These two things were the only consistent themes in Isaac's life. The things he had known, with absolute, grim certainty, would always come back to him. They were things he could not control. He hated things he could not control; He hated the situation he was in.

Killing his former master had been a necessity, he knew that now. At the time, he had only known his own pain, and his sudden, fierce desire to escape by any means. He had acted on instinct, and he did not regret plunging his thumbs into the eyes of the man who had hurt him to control him.

Reflection had brought him clarity. There was no such thing as love, only desperate hopes and fruitless dreams which bound people. Whatever "love" Isaac had felt for his master was nothing more than a trick of his mind, to make sense of the man's cruelty.

But no longer. He had taken back his control. Or at least, he had thought so.

Isaac had little combat experience; No one wanted to teach a slave, no matter that he had fled to other towns and they shouldn't have known. Even the others on the streets shied away from him. It must have been the look in his eyes.

Thus his current situation, stuck in the small alleys between old, leaning buildings, brigand magicians before and behind him. Everything in his vision seemed to be some shade of red. The crimson rays of the setting sun, peeking around the corner; The deep scarlet of the braiding on their weapons, proclaiming their loyalty to black market dealers; The dusting of rose gold sand beneath their feet; And especially Isaac's blood, dripping down one arm to plop silently onto the ground.

He would die. It was inevitable. With little skill and no help, the magicians would easily take him. And again, his world would be nothing but pain and blood, until he died.

Perhaps that was all there was in the world. Then, it was no wonder such a thing as love could not exist there.

One man in front of him moved forward, blocking his view of any remaining light. Isaac brought up his one good hand, clenched into a fist, for all the good it would do him. But whether or not he struggled was his choice, and so he would make it.

With a whoosh of movement, the magician's shadow shifted unnaturally, and he opened his mouth only to cough up blood. Time froze.

The shadow, Isaac now saw, was a man. Or perhaps, a spirit.

He was tall and broad, cloaked in black, but his skin had no color to it, like he formed from ivory. His hair-long on top, accompanied by a small moustache and beard-lay lank and flat as wheat stalks. Pointed ears peeked from beneath it. Certainly, he was not living.

When the brigands got over their surprise, they charged the ghostly man. One by one, they fell, arcs of blood following as the spirit tore them apart with long, claw-like fingernails. Isaac watched in fascination as their throats were torn out, their eyes gouged, their chests run through, and felt... nothing.

No, his feeling was something, but he did not recognize it. His fear and worry, oddly enough, were gone. Even as the last magician alive grabbed him from behind, Isaac's heart only jolted once.

"Stay where you are, monster!" the magician screamed.

The spirit locked eyes with Isaac, covered in the blood of his enemies, and disappeared. Before he could feel his surprise fully morph into disappointment, the man holding him made a gurgling sound. Something wet and warm dripped onto Isaac's shoulder, and then he was dropped to the ground.

He touched the spot. It smelled like iron.

Turning, he saw the last brigand, head separated from his neck, crumple. Silent, the spirit stood, taller than any man Isaac had seen, with sharp fangs bared as he sighed. When the spirit moved, Isaac did not.

The silence within his body seemed so familiar, despite the fact he'd never felt it before.

Pale hands, deceptively delicate, reached for him. Nails scraped just barely along the right side of Isaac's head, and he heard a gentle rasp from their contact with his short growth of hair. He looked up and saw eyes as red as the blood covering the spirit's face, curiosity in their depths.

Isaac stood, and the spirit's hand moved down.

"Why are you so still, with so much death around you?" the spirit murmured, nails tracing along Isaac's neck.

Acceptance, Isaac realized. That was the feeling stilling his heart and steadying his gaze. He had seen the emotion in some of the dead, those few who knew of the inevitability of their end, as Isaac did. What a beautiful feeling.

"I have no fear of death," Isaac said, looking up. This red, he thought, he did not mind seeing before he died. "It always sounded peaceful to me."

So when the unearthly man pulled away, beckoning him, Isaac chose to follow.

I'm going all the way until March 3 with this.

Please let me know your thoughts! Since this is a challenge, I'm not spending much time editing, so hearing from y'all would be super helpful. ^^