Octavius WATTYS 2016

There he lay, fragile on the sick bed, waiting for the angel of death to take his pitiful life away. His wife sat by his side staring into the air. He broke the silence when he spoke.

"Has he come?" Hanbity asked as he struggled to speak

"No one is coming for you my love, you're not going to die," Octavius said raising his weak hands and giving him a light kiss on his palms. She stared into his eyes as tears rolled down her cheeks. To him, she had already given up on him but to her, his life was just beginning. She wouldn't and couldn't let her husband die.

Octavius was a powerful witch, the last of her kind. For the first time, she had never seen a disease that was so strong and hard to cure. She couldn't even do anything to help with the powers she had. But for every circumstance, there are always loopholes, and she was determined to find one.

She went through the grimoires of her late mother searching for something, anything and there the answer laid; the tonic that will end all deaths, the solution to her problem and the cure to her husband's illness. She couldn't believe her eyes. In it was also how to reverse the spell. While she read she came across a phrase which was written in Latin. It said;

"servare vivere est ad vitam"

"To save a life is to take a life" Octavius read aloud. Everything comes with a price. This phrase broke her heart to pieces. She looked at her infant daughter in a cradle as tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them off quickly and went to meet her dying husband.

"I've found a cure" she uttered sadly trying to control her tears.

"Why do you sound like that?" Hanbity asked confused

"It involves a sacrifice" Octavius responded ashamed. She had refused to look her husband in the eye whilst she spoke.

"Octavius look at me" Hanbity ordered frailly. She was reluctant. She whined on and on about the sacrifice but Hanbity just laid there helpless until he called out her name. She was in shock because since Hanbity's illness got severe, he had never used any pitch higher than a whisper.

"My life is gone, spare whomever's life you intend to take" Hanbity insisted, holding his wife's hands.

"When I'm gone you'll tell our daughter nice things about me," Hanbity said as he looked up to the ceiling, rubbing his wife's hands with his thumb.

"And what do you want me to tell her Han, that her father gave up on her, gave up on me, gave up on us?" Octavius retorted in tears staring into the eyes of her husband.

"Tell me Octavius, who's giving up their life for me?" Hanbity asked. Octavius was hesitant to speak. There was a brief silence.

"I can't bear the pain of losing you......but I can bear the pain of losing her"

"Octavius....."

"I'm sorry my love, but there's no turning back" Octavius replied standing up from the bed she took off. She locked the door behind her and went in search of the ingredients she needed to complete the spell.

Quite lucky she was, hours later, she had returned with the ingredients. She ground them in a bowl. Then went to her daughter's room. She looked her daughter in the eyes as she giggled and waved her tiny fingers at her mother. Octavius couldn't bring herself to kill her only child but her husband wasn't getting any healthier so she looked away and started mumbling some chants. The baby began crying. Hanbity heard the cry of his daughter and called out to Octavius, but nothing was going to stop her from killing their daughter.

Suddenly the cry stopped. Their daughter was dead. Octavius cut her dead daughter's left hand and took some blood from it mixing it in the bowl that contained what she had just ground and immediately it liquidised. She stormed off to her husband's room. He was almost lifeless. She hurriedly gave him the tonic. He drank it all and then passed out.

Hours later he had awoken with his head on the lap of his wife. She was singing to him. He was a bit weak still trying to regain consciousness. As soon as he was himself again, he hurriedly got up from Octavius' lap and stood at the other side of the bed.

"Where's our daughter?" He asked rather frank than happy.

"I had no other choice Han" Octavius retorted