It had a sharp snout, prominent ribs, and a surprisingly lively, almost alert, gaze, like that of a creature that had learned to survive where others only knew how to die. Bruno could have thrown a stone at it, shouted to scare it away, or tried to crush it with the broken shoe he still had. Any prisoner would have done the same. In a place like that, you clung to what little food you had with the desperation of a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a piece of driftwood.
But Bruno was no longer quite the man who had entered the tower of oblivion.

Hunger had consumed him.
Darkness had emptied him.
Injustice had crushed him.
And yet, there remained something in him that neither confinement nor pain had managed to kill: that small, stubborn part that continued to recognize the suffering of others.
The rat advanced a few centimeters, sniffing the air.
Bruno swallowed. Then, with almost sacred slowness, he broke the dry bread in two.
“I suppose you’re condemned to this hell too,” she murmured.
He threw half of it into the crack.
The rat startled, backed away for a moment, and then pounced on the piece. It gripped it with both front paws and began to gnaw at it with desperate speed. Bruno watched in silence, feeling a strange pang in his chest. It was ridiculous, he thought. Ridiculous to share his last supper with vermin. And yet, that gesture restored to him, for a second, a forgotten sensation: that of still being master of his humanity.
“Eat,” she whispered. “At least one of us will enjoy something today.”
The rat raised its head, as if it had understood the tone of her voice. Its whiskers trembled. Then it disappeared back into the crack.
Bruno let out a long sigh and leaned his head against the damp wall.
No sign came from heaven.