Behind the Barricades

The Hospital

MARGUERITE: 8 years old

Dark.

The entirety of the building along with the rest of France is dimly lit and cold. The whole aura is gloomy and the air is thick with death. My brother and I live in the hospital with our mother who is a nurse. She is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Her blonde hair tied back, perfectly revealing her radiant complexion. Her icy blue eyes glow in the candlelight and her smile fills everyone's heart with warmth. She is my mother and I love her. When I grow up I'd like to be a nurse just like her. She lets me and my brother, Enjolras, help with some of the low priority patients.

Next to me is my best friend, Millie. Her mom is a nurse too and they live with me and my brother. She lets her gorgeous red hair down and hangs over her shoulders except when she's working. Then she ties it back with a ribbon to reveal her emerald green eyes. I wish I had her beautiful hair but instead I'm stuck with my ashy blonde curls like my brother.

On him, it looks right. Like a shade of blonde that was selected to perfectly compliment him in every way but on me, it's just boring. It washes me out and I feel bland and unnoticed. My brother doesn't need colourful hair because his gorgeous blue eyes, like our mother, are the center piece but for myself, I just have regular brown eyes from my father, I assume. I've never met my father and I have no interest in doing so.

Enjolras and Millie are tending to a patient with consumption. I watch as they pat her head with a damp cloth and help her take small sips of water. I am not allowed to go near except when to get a pillow to be placed under her hairless head or to take the dishes to the kitchen. He hair has been chopped above the ears and her skin is as white as the sheets. She calls out for someone but I don't think they are here

Millie and Enjolras leave her just as a man comes to visit her. He sits by her side and holds her hand. "Dear Fantine. Our time is running out," he says to her.

"Madge," my brother calls.

My nickname that he's called me since I was born. "Can you take these down the kitchen?" He asks. He hands me two wooden bowls, one filled with drinking water, and another with a rag. I walk downstairs and Millie follows me while untying her ribbon and letting her hair fall.

She is so beautiful.

"This will be you in a few years," she says fiddling with her silver locket around her neck.

"What do you have there, Millie?" I ask while placing the bowls in the sink and grabbing a roll off the silver tray. It's still hot and it burns my hand slightly, forcing me to drop it back down.

"It's all I have left of my father. What I wouldn't give to get to talk to him," she whispers with her eyes closed.

Her father died in a robbery when she was an enfant. He was fighting them off while her mother took her and ran to get the police but by the time they returned, it was too late.

We walk back upstairs to find Enjolras sitting with his head bowed. The whole floor has their head bowed. Someone has died. I look over to see the guest gently sobbing while still holding her hand tightly. My mother drapes a sheet over top of her. Millie gasps at the realization. We were up here just moments before and she was alive.

All of a sudden we hear the steady rhythmic movement of hooves outside that then come to a halt.

"Inspector Javert. What brings you here?" A nurse downstairs whispers to him but I can hear his footsteps pass her without stopping.

Enjolras grabs my hand. "Come on, Madge it's time for bed," he says while leading me up to the third floor where we sleep.

The inspector passes through the door just before us but crosses in front and walks right by without even acknowledging us. This was a man on a mission. His cold expression and dead eyes meant business and that no one should even dare get in his way.