Love Beyond The Barricade

Chapter 1

    Les Amis de L'ABC are in the café Musain, having their usual rendezvous. Lively conversations all around, with wine flowing like water.

    Only Enjolras doesn't drink any, he needs to keep his mind clear and his reason uncompromised, for the hour of revolution  could strike any time now. He is alert and ready to die at any moment, as long as it is for his cause.

    Grantaire on the other hand, is several glasses deep into the wine. He drinks to lull himself into a twilight numbness, where he isn't absolutely crushed by the fact that Enjolras, Grantaire's only reason to live, his only belief, will likely die soon. Enjolras is handsome in an ethereal and divine way. He has golden hair like a crown of sunlight upon his head, skin like porcelain and eyes cerulean like an angry ocean. But at this stage, Grantaire can barely feel Enjolras looking at him with a tragic mix of pity and disgust.

    Enjolras cares about Grantaire deeply. He wishes he could help him but Grantaire just seems too far gone. Besides, Enjolras has a revolution to run, he can't let himself be distracted by a boy, even if that boy is  breathtakingly beautiful in a strange way.

    Grantaire has the pale, slightly discolored skin of a corpse, hair in untamed black ringlets, alluring lips and magical emerald eyes that sparkle even when glazed over.

    Marius walks into the meeting. Late. He's never been late before. More shocking yet, he is pale as a sheet and doesn't even greet the others. He simply falls into a chair and sits there with a vacant look in his eyes; his mind is clearly in a different place.

"Are you okay?" said Jehan.

"You must be ill," said Joly.

"You look as if you've seen a ghost! Some wine and say what's going on?" said Grantaire in a slightly slurred speech.

Marius suddenly broke into song.

"A ghost you say? A ghost maybe. She was just like a ghost to me. One minute there then she was gone."

Cue an intense eyeroll on the part of every member of Les Amis.

"No one cares about your lonely soul! We strive towards a larger goal," Enjolras said, exhausted by Marius's bs.

"Romance in my revolution? More likely than you think," quipped Grantaire.

    Enjolras, Grantaire, Courferyac, Combferre, Marius and a few other members of Les Amis all have words written on their wrists. An old legend tells that every soul is made with its equal counterpart and when the two halves are united, they are complete. In basic terms, soulmates exist. The words written on one's wrist are said to be the last words of their soulmate. However, the words only appear in a soul's first life. Each time a soul begins a new life, the memories of it's past lives are mostly erased.

Grantaire is standing shakily on a chair, visibly drunker than when we'd  last seen him and loudly ranting.

"Our lives will mean absolutely nothing! We will die and the world will go on just the same! The bourgeoisie will emerge triumphant once more.  Life is but a dream for the dead! Life just causes you pain, then kills you! Is it-"

"You are miserable! Incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living and of dying! We are at a turning point of history! General Lamarque, the people's man, lays ill and-"
Enjolras had interrupted Grantaire and now he was being interrupted by the appearance of a young boy, dressed in rags named Gavroche.

"General Lamarque is dead." Gavroche declared solemnly.

The room fell silent. Then a quiet murmur spread across the café, taking only half a minute to progress into loud arguments.

"Silence!" yelled Enjolras. Everyone respected his authority and obeyed. "Whence the funeral of Lamarque passes through the city, the barricades shall rise."

~The day of the funeral~

    The funeral procession marches through the town and Les Amis are waiting for the cue of their leader to begin rebelling.

"Vive la France!" yells Enjolras with fervor.

With that, Les Amis pick up their bright red flags and run into the procession. A chorus of revolutionary phrases ring out and Les Amis climb onto the carriage parading the coffin and wave their flags. At this point, the people in the audience start chanting with them.

A large group of soldiers arrive and take aim at the mass of people. All of a sudden a single shot rips through the crowd and an elderly woman falls to the ground. The gunshot came from a hidden soldier who was very quickly found and shot down. This sent the street into a storm of gunfire.

"To the barricade!" Enjolras instructed with great urgence.

So, everyone starts running, weaving through the streets and notifying the people living in them that the time has come.

"Throw down as much furniture as you can!" yells Combferre to anybody who can hear.

Les Amis all feel the intoxicating mix of fear and elation that some may call adrenaline.