Gastón had become paranoid. He kept the stolen ring along with other jewels he had stolen over the years in a secret safe, behind a painting in his private room. Every night he would double lock the door, take out the ring and look at it, making sure it was still there. The glitter of gold and ruby that had once given him pleasure now caused him anxiety. If anyone finds him, I’m dead, he thought. I have to sell it, I have to get rid of it.
But the fear of being caught trying to sell such a famous jewel paralyzed him. One afternoon, Gaston felt the unhealthy need to see his victim. He went down to the prison, bribed the guard and stood in front of Bruno’s cell. “Look at you,” Gastón said, covering his nose with a scented handkerchief. “You look like a corpse.” Bruno, trembling with fever, looked up. “You can lock me up, Gaston, but you live in a prison smaller than mine. The prison of your fear.”
Gaston, furious at not seeing Bruno completely broken, knocked on the bars. “Save your words, thief. The governor has decided. In three days at dawn you will be hanged in the public square. Enjoy your last hours.” The news fell on Bruno like a slab of lead. Three days. 72 hours. That was all that was left of his existence. The fear of death, which had been latent, turned into a sharp, cold panic. When Gaston left, Bruno collapsed.
She cried until she had no tears left. He pounded his fists on the ground until they bled. “God cried out in the dark, it’s not fair. I’m going to die for someone else’s greed. Where are you? Why have you forsaken me?” That night Chispa did not come to eat. Bruno left the bread on the ground, but the animal appeared. Loneliness became absolute. Bruno thought that even the rat had abandoned him at the approach of death. He huddled in a corner, trembling, waiting for the end.
“Maybe it’s better that way,” he thought. Death will be a relief from this suffering. But Bruno knew that Spark had not abandoned him. The little rat was on a mission guided by an instinct that was not natural, but divine. The animal had found a way through the ancient pipes and crevices in the foundation, a labyrinth that connected the rottenness of the prison with the luxury of the mansion just above.
The next night, Bruno’s penultimate night, a noise woke him from his feverish sleep.
“Spark,” he whispered in a barely audible voice. The rat was there, but this time it wasn’t coming to look for food. There was something in her mouth, something that shone faintly in the gloom. Spark reached over to Bruno’s hand and dropped the object into his palm. Bruno brought him close to his eyes, squinting them to see in the darkness. His heart skipped a violent beat. It wasn’t a stone or a piece of garbage, it was a button. But not just any button, it was a solid gold button with the emblem of a fleur-de-lis engraved.
Bruno knew that button, he had polished it hundreds of times. It was a button on Gaston’s dress vest, a vest that Gaston jealously guarded in his private room. “Where did you get this?” asked Bruno stunned, looking at the animal. The rat squealed softly and ran towards the crack in the wall. Then she returned as if inviting him to follow her or showing him a path. Bruno’s mind, despite the fever, began to work at full speed. If the rat could go back and forth from Gaston’s room to the cell, it meant there was a direct physical connection and meant something else.
The rat was a forager, attracted to shiny things. A crazy, desperate, and almost impossible idea began to form in the condemned man’s mind. It was a one in a million chance, but it was the only thing I had. Bruno took off his only valuable possession, an old silver medal. He showed it to Spark, whose eyes shone with fascination. “Take it,” Bruno told her, confiding his last hope to an animal. “But bring me what he hides. Bring me the truth.” The rat took the medal with its teeth and disappeared through the dark crack.
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