For ten long years, he had counted the days in a cold cell, deprived of fresh air and hope. But even more than the prison walls, it was the absence of the woman he loved that crushed him.
His fiancée, the woman he was to marry the day after the tragedy, had disappeared without a trace. And he, unjustly accused, had been found guilty in a summary trial. He had been convicted without real evidence, based on false testimony. Since then, his life had stood still like a stopped clock.
Every night, he dreamed of her face, her lost smile, and above all, of a goodbye he had never been able to give her. What kept him alive was not the promise of future freedom, but a single fixed idea: the day he was released, he would go directly to her grave to lay the flowers she had never received from him.
Finally, the day arrived. The prison gates closed behind him, and he took a deep breath of the icy winter air. His steps led him almost mechanically to the cemetery.
Around him, the fog muffled sounds, and the silhouettes of the funerary monuments stood out like shadows frozen in the stone. Trembling, he found his beloved’s grave. He placed a bouquet of fresh flowers on the slab and stroked the cold stone, as if this simple gesture could bring a little warmth back to this world that had betrayed him.
But suddenly, his eyes froze. His breath caught. On the stone, he read: 1990–2015.
An icy chill ran through him from head to toe. His heart was pounding so hard he felt dizzy. For he remembered perfectly: in his court file, in the minutes, his fiancée’s death had been officially recorded as March 2014. How was it possible for the stone to indicate a different date? Was it a marble mason’s error… or a terrible secret being hidden?
Determined to understand, he knocked on the door of his former in-laws’ house. His mother, her expression closed, greeted him without saying a word. When he dared to ask, the answer was curt and icy:
«Just an engraving error.»
But he saw in her eyes that she was lying. And this lie confirmed his worst premonitions.
So he began to investigate, alone, driven by a rage boiling within him. Thanks to old acquaintances, he gained access to certain files thought to be buried. And what he read shattered the few points of reference he had left: his love hadn’t been found in 2014, but in 2015. For a year, she had been considered missing, wandering somewhere in the world, alive, while he languished behind bars.
The experts had even concluded that the body had been «relatively fresh» when it was discovered. Which meant only one thing: she had survived much longer than he had been told. She hadn’t died when he was accused. She was still breathing, somewhere, while he despaired in his cell.
At that moment, everything became clear to him: he had been sacrificed. It was easier for the authorities to convict him quickly than to seek the truth. The case had been covered up, the pain buried, and an innocent man left to rot for ten years in prison while the real culprit remained free.
He fell to his knees, tears blurring his vision. His entire future had been stolen. His youth, his love, his dignity—erased as if nothing had mattered.
But inside him, something had been reborn: a burning anger, a thirst for justice stronger than all the past humiliations. It wasn’t just a matter of innocence anymore. It was a promise.
He swore on that grave, his fists clenched: he would find the one who had shattered his happiness, the one who had stolen his fiancée’s life and his own at the same time. And he wouldn’t stop until the truth came to light.
