On My Own

Chapter Eight - The Final Battle

I felt the tears pour from my eyes and stream down my face as Joly stared at me. He put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a look of sympathy as I wiped the tears from my eyes. We stood up and walked back towards the barricade. Everybody was sitting along the bottom of the barricade trying not to fall asleep. "Courfeyrac, you take the watch. They may attack before its light." I ordered. Courfeyrac stood up and climbed to the top of the barricade. "Everybody keep the faith, for certain as our banner flies, we are not alone. The people too must rise." I said, trying to lift everyone's spirits. They all looked at the ground. Then, Grantaire stood up with his bottle of wine in his hand.

"Drink with me, to days gone by." He began to sing. Everybody joined in with him, including me.

"To the life, that used to be. At the shrine of friendship, never say die. Let the wine of friendship never run dry. Here's to you. And here's to me."

Everybody continued to sing as I walked back into the café and thought of Éponine. "Éponine, I will continue to fight for you. No matter what happens, you will always be on my mind. I fight in your name." I thought to myself. I felt tears swell up in my eyes but I wiped them away before they could fall. Then, I walked over to a chair, sat down, and fell asleep.

I awoke the next morning to Combeferre shaking me. "What is it?" I asked, rubbing my eyes to wake up more.

"There's no one else fighting." Combeferre replied.

"What do you mean?" I asked, jumping out of my chair.

"I mean, we're the only ones left."

I stared at him for a while, unsure of what to say. Then, we both walked out of the café and approached the rest of the revolutionaries by the barricade. "Listen, everybody. It has come to my attention that we are the only barricade left. Let's not waste lives. If you don't want to be a part of this anymore, then you have my permission to leave." I announced. No one moved from where they were sitting. I smiled, and then continued to speak. "Well, since that's settled, how is our ammunition?"

"It is all wet from the rain last night." Joly replied.

"Okay...well maybe we can find some dry ammunition on some of the dead bodies. Marius, go look." I ordered. Marius nodded and searched for the soldier's bodies. Everybody scrambled around and looked for ammunition. Suddenly, we heard Gavroche's voice from the other side of the barricade.

"Little people know when little people fight, we may look easy pickings, but we got some bite!" He yelled to the soldiers.

"Gavroche!" Combeferre called. Gavroche only looked back and smiled.

"So never kick a dog, because he's just a pup!"

A gunshot went off, barely missing Gavroche.

"We'll fight like twenty armies and we won't give up!"

"Gavroche!!! Come back!!! What are you doing??" Courfeyrac shouted, scrambling to try and get over the barricade, only to have Joly and Grantaire hold him back. Another gunshot went off, hitting Gavroche in the arm. Courfeyrac ran to the side of the barricade and tried to squeeze through the side. Marius and I ran over to him and held him back to keep him from getting shot as well.

"So you better run for cover when the pup grows-"

A third gunshot went off, hitting Gavroche in the heart. He fell backwards onto the ground. Courfeyrac pulled himself out of our grasp and ran to Gavroche's side. Tears streamed down his face as he picked Gavroche up and brought him to the other side of the barricade. Courfeyrac cuddled Gavroche in his arms as he cried. I felt a tear stream down my face as well. Then, the commanding officer of the French soldiers spoke out to us.

"You at the barricade listen to this. The people of Paris sleep in their beds. You have no chance, no chance at all. Why throw your lives away?" He said.

"Let us die facing our foes. Make them bleed while we can" I replied.

"Make them pay through the nose." Combeferre added.

"Make them pay for every man." Courfeyrac said.

"Let all those rise to take our place until the earth is free!" I yelled.

There was a moment of silence until the officer yelled out "CANNONS!" Suddenly, there were cannons being wheeled in front of the barricade by soldiers. I called to my boys to prepare themselves to start shooting. "FIRE!" The officer yelled. Three cannons went off, hitting the barricade. I fired my gun along with other revolutionaries at the top of the barricade. The soldiers began shooting back, and more cannons went off. Bullets were flying everywhere. Then, the soldiers began to climb the barricade. More revolutionaries climbed to the top to help stop them from entering our side, but there were too many soldiers. I watched as some of my brave men fell to the ground, and shot a soldier as he was coming over the top of the barricade. I jumped off the barricade to help pull my friends to safety when I heard Marius cry out in pain. I turned around to see him bleeding from his torso, just like Éponine was. "Marius!" I called out. Before I could run to him, a man who had been helping us out already picked him up and brought him aside. I was then pulled into the café by Combeferre, Courfeyrac, and Joly. We ran up the stairs and chopped them off as we went up to keep the soldiers from following us up. Just when we thought we were safe, guns from below us went off and Combeferre, Courfeyrac, and Joly fell to the ground, leaving me standing on my own. The soldiers barged through the door and found me by the window. I stared at them, and then saw Grantaire out of the corner of my eye. He stumbled over to me and stood by my side. I picked up a flag off of the ground. Grantaire and I looked at the soldiers with hatred. I raised the flag above my head. "For Éponine. For France. For freedom. For love." I thought to myself. Then, the soldier's guns went off. I felt the bullets break through my body eight times, and I stumbled backwards. I fell out of the window and everything around me went black.

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A.N. - Sorry this took a while to get up! I haven't gotten around to writing it until last night. I was going to post it last night too, but I decided today would be a better day to post. Today, June 6, is the day that the actual battle happened. It was the June Rebellion of 1832, and a total of 3,000 revolutionaries fought for freedom in France. So if Les Mis were real, today would be the actual day that Enjolras, Grantaire, Gavroche, Courfeyrac, and all the other barricade boys died. Because of the June Rebellion, Victor Hugo wrote Les Miserables. Because Hugo wrote Les Miserables, it was developed into a classic musical in the 1980s. Because it became a musical, it was developed into a best-selling movie in 2012. The real revolutionaries may have lost and missed being in the history books, but they inspired a historical fiction story famous around the world today. There's your history lesson for the day! I think it's pretty cool. Anyways, theres only one more part to this story, and I will get it up as soon as I can. I hope you liked this chapter!