The Uprising

[Zak]

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Barcelona – August 1, 2006 | 02:43 AM

Rain had been falling for hours, soaking the city in a kind of eerie silence. The streets were mostly empty, except for the shadows.

Júlia Riera watched from the top floor of an abandoned hotel across from the Palau de la Generalitat. Her breath misted in the cool air as she gripped the encrypted comms unit in her hand.

“All units, prepare to move. Operation Albatross is green.”

The voice crackled back from different parts of the city, warehouse rooftops in Sant Martí, tunnels beneath Sants station, a quiet courtyard in Gràcia where weapons had been smuggled in crates marked agricultural tools. Júlia stepped back from the window and fastened the armband around her bicep which contained the logo of the organisation she had founded, the Free Catalan Assembly.

“They gave us their answer years ago,” she muttered. “Now they get ours.”

She was not a career revolutionary. A decade ago, she was a police cadet. Five years ago, she was one of the youngest lieutenants in the Mossos d'Esquadra. Now, she was something else entirely, the architect of a rebellion she could no longer control.

04:09 AM – Plaça Sant Jaume
The first flashbang echoed like thunder through the narrow alleys. Masked figures emerged from the fog and took the square in minutes. Soldiers, though they didn’t wear uniforms, broke through the Parliament doors without a shot.

Inside, security guards were disarmed and offered a choice, stand down or be treated as enemies of the republic. Most stood down. At the top of the steps, she removed her phone and began live streaming on social media to her large audience of followers as she was a prominent Catalan independence activist.

“Catalans, we do not rise out of hate, we rise out of silence. Madrid will call us criminals. The old guard will call us traitors. Let them. But this is not a coup. It is a correction.”

Behind her, the Spanish flag was removed and above the Parliament, the flag of the Free Catalan Assembly was raised next to the flag of Catalonia.

05:20 AM – Girona
Catalan President Salvador Illa, now in hiding, sat behind a desk lined with Catalan and Spanish flags. The lights were dim, power scarce. But he had to speak.

“My fellow citizens,” he began, weary, “this is a tragedy.”

His speech was calm but firm, playing on the nerves of an uncertain nation.

“I know many of you feel abandoned. Betrayed. But revolution is not the answer. We must restore order, not descend into chaos. These insurgents do not speak for all of us. They speak only for themselves.”

The stream was brief. Already his aides were preparing to move him again.

06:11 AM – The Streets
Marina Costa ran barefoot through the rain. Her boots were gone,stolen or lost in the stampede after the first tear gas canister exploded near the university.

She ducked behind an overturned trash bin and opened her livestream.

“Hey… it’s me,” she whispered, soaked, blood on her cheek. “The Free Catalonia guys took the square. People are saying it's real, like, the actual revolution. I don’t know if I believe them. But something’s… different. You can feel it in the air.”

Behind her, the skyline of Barcelona was lit only by a dark ominous smoke.

07:35 AM – Madrid
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez looked older than he had twenty-four hours earlier. His cabinet sat in tight formation, eyes dark with panic.

“We move now, send the Guardia. Seal the border. Cut their comms. Total isolation.”

“But the Global Assembly will—”

“Let them condemn us. We either hold Spain together now, or we never hold it again.”

His military advisor said nothing, only nodded.

08:00 AM – Broadcast to the World
Commander Júlia Riera stood in the Parliament chamber, flanked by members of the new Transitional Council of the Catalan Republic. Behind them was a map of Catalonia, no longer bordered by Spain.

“We call on the international community to recognize us not as rebels, but as freemen and women. Catalonia is not leaving Spain. Catalonia has already left.”

 

[Zak]

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Barcelona – August 2, 2006 | 09:52am

The sun never truly rose over Barcelona that morning. Gray clouds hung low over the city as CASA CN-235 military reconnaissance aircraft roared across the sky, their silhouettes breaking through the fog like vultures circling over wounded prey.

But the city wasn’t broken yet.

It was waiting.

The old medieval tunnels beneath the Generalitat had become an impromptu war room. Maps of Catalonia were spread across a table made of stolen desks. Cell towers were down, but the rebels were improvising, satellite rigs, black-market frequencies, burner phones.

Júlia Riera was hunched over a console, surrounded by a half-dozen officers in mismatched fatigues. Some were former Mossos, others exiled activists, a few were foreign volunteers with muddy Spanish and clearer convictions.

“We hold the city. We do not break,” she said, jabbing a finger on the map at the junction near Les Corts. “Madrid will test us here first. That’s where the highway armor’s headed.”

Someone raised the obvious question: “What if they send airstrikes?”

Júlia looked up, eyes rimmed red from sleeplessness.

“Then we make sure the world sees it. Let them watch Spain bomb its own.”

A long pause. Then nods.

No one said it aloud, but they all understood, this wasn’t just about Catalonia anymore. It was about legitimacy. If they could survive the first three days, they’d earn the one thing no amount of guns could give them.

Recognition.

Somewhere in Andorra
Salvador Illa poured himself a glass of water with trembling hands. He hadn't slept. In truth, he hadn’t really thought in hours, just reacted. His last broadcast had landed with a thud. His party was fragmenting. Some wanted negotiations. Others were already whispering about defecting to Riera’s council. He knew that the Global Assembly would only offer words of “deep concern” and “calls for restraint.”

He stepped into the small hotel room where a makeshift camera setup was waiting.

This time, there was no flag behind him. Just a pale wall.

“To my people,” he began, quieter now. “If you hear nothing else I say, hear this, I do not care who rules Barcelona, so long as it is not ruled by fear. I will return, not as a politician, but as a Catalan. We must all return. To the streets. To the squares. Peacefully. Together.”

It was the closest he had come to conceding.

Barcelona
Marina was everywhere and nowhere at once.

Her livestream, “Catalonia in Real Time” had gone viral on Twitter overnight, picked up by journalists and activists from Stockholm to Bangkok. She had no plan, no party, no weapon but a cracked phone and a voice that didn’t flinch.

From a rooftop in Raval neighbourhood, she looked into the camera again.

“There’s a police tank stuck on the Avinguda Meridiana,” she said, pointing. “You can hear it from here. The rebels have the overpasses blocked with buses. Real buses. Drivers left the keys for them last night. That’s what this is now, ordinary people doing extraordinary things. I don’t know who’s right anymore. But I know who’s scared. Madrid is.”

Behind her, the smoke from a burning police outpost drifted upward, soft against the clouds.

Madrid – Operation Reintegration Begins
At 3:00 PM, Five hundred Spanish ground soldiers from the Batallón Mecanizado “Valentia” officially entered the Barcelona metro area in their URO VAMTAC transport vehicles . They were met not with bullets, but bodies, unarmed protesters linked arm-in-arm across the A-2 and C-58 motorways, refusing to move. At the command center, General Alarcón gave the orders, non-lethal first, escalation if needed.

The order was also given for the 4th Special Operations Group "Almogávares" which were based in a small barracks to the south of the city of Barcelona to mobilise with their Toyota Land Cruiser vehicles.

By 4:12 PM, the first rubber bullets were fired. At 4:17, someone fired back.

Júlia Riera – National Broadcast #2
Just before sunset, the rebel network pushed out another live feed. The image was raw, unedited. Riera’s face was streaked with ash and rain.

“Spain has made its choice. They bring force. We bring will. And will, unlike bullets, doesn’t run out. You want to know what Catalonia is? Look at the kids holding the barricades. Look at the old women passing bread to strangers. Look at the firefighters who refused Madrid’s orders. This is Catalonia. And we are not going anywhere.”

Across the world, headlines raced:

"Coup or Liberation? Second Night of Clashes in Barcelona" – TRT World

"Europe Silent as Catalonia Bleeds" – Al Jazeera

"Twitter Star Becomes Voice of Revolution" – Vice

Civilians began to flee into other parts of Spain but also into France, many holding flags that no longer matched any official nation.

And in a dark alley behind Passeig de Gràcia, a child handed a soldier a drawing.

A bird. Red and gold. Wings spread wide.