He was going to be EXECUTED at dawn for a crime he didn’t commit, but a RAT saved his life…

But Bruno, in his infinite solitude, felt something different. He saw in the animal the same hunger and misery that he felt. “You’re hungry too, aren’t you, little one?” whispered Bruno in a hoarse voice. The rat did not run away. He moved his nose smelling the bread. Bruno looked at his food. It was so little, just enough to keep him alive another day. His survival instinct screamed at him to eat everything, but his heart, that kind heart that not even prison had been able to fully harden, took control.

He split the piece of bread in two! Here, he said softly, tossing the smaller half toward the crack. It is little, but it is shared…

Part 2 …

The rat shot out, took the bread and disappeared into the darkness. Bruno ate his part feeling a strange warmth in his chest. For the first time in weeks he had connected with another living being. He did not know that this act of mercy, so small and insignificant in the eyes of the world, had just set in motion the gears of his liberation.

God had heard his prayer and his messenger had no wings, but a tail. From that night on, a sacred routine was established in the darkness of the cell. Every time the guard brought the food, the rat would appear punctually as if it had an internal clock synchronized with Bruno’s hunger. He named her Spark because of the intelligent sparkle in her black eyes. It was no longer just sharing food, it was sharing company. Bruno spoke to her, told her about his life before prison, about Gastón’s injustice, about his fears.

“You’re the only creature that doesn’t judge me here, Spark,” she whispered as the little animal confidently ate crumbs from her hand. Perhaps you are nobler than all the men who walk up there. The rat, in its own way, seemed to hear him. Sometimes he would stay a while longer after lunch, wiping his mustaches, watching him with a curiosity that seemed almost human. However, Bruno’s health was deteriorating rapidly. The moisture from the stone had gotten into his lungs.

He began coughing up blood. Fever visited him at night, causing him delirium, where he saw Gastón laughing and the governor signing his death warrant. He felt like his life was fading like the torch in the hallway, slowly, without anyone caring. Upstairs in the mansion, Gaston’s life was very different, but no less tormented. He had been promoted. He was now in full control of the house, but peace had left him. Guilt is a ghost that does not need chains to imprison.