Alissa

FELIX BROWN

Felix Brown moved to Telluride when he got rich. A couple of smart business moves, a team of financial advisors and after a shit tonne of sleepless nights and coffee cups, the twenty-seven year old sold his home security company for ten million dollars and got out of the city that was home to only bad memories for him.

You can't blame a kid for hating on a city whose factories gave both of his parents cancer.

Felix started making his own home security system when his father collapsed in the bathroom one night and his wheelchair-ridden mother couldn't do anything about it. He was too tired to wake up after working at the garage in the outskirts—to pay for his parent's medical bills at The Houston Cancer Research Centre.

He made his own security cameras from tech junk even before his voice matured. Soon, he started tinkering with cellular waves so that his parents could call him in distress even if he was working at the garage where phone signals were non-existent. His fingertips were rough and worn; his palms were full of cuts before he even crossed the legal age to work.

He knew he had done everything to make sure his parents would be alright when he wasn't home. He also knew no matter how much he tried, or no matter how much the doctors tried, there was no saving them. He was bargaining with death, to buy his parents more time. But he kept on working anyway. Before he knew it, he was obsessed with the craft more than he was obsessed with saving them.

He was only nineteen, when they passed away within a span of fourteen days on the beds of HCR.

He started HELIX Security eight months after his parent's demise. 'H' for both his parent's names—Helena and Harrison.

Five years after going public, he sold HELIX and finally gave his worn and blistered hands a break. It was time to hang the cape and live the life his parents wanted him to, which led to them joining the factory in the first place.

Alissa Gray was only fourteen when she read about Felix Brown moving to Telluride—the city self-made millionaires flocked to, when it was time to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

***

A couple years before Felix's arrival, The Telluride Tulip's membership prices began to rise as more and more business tycoons started to join. Soon, they wanted the club all to themselves. That meant the parasites of the town—the middle class—who worked at these tycoon's warehouses and stores had no place at the tulip.

When the 'regulars', as the rich liked to called them, began to revolt, a new society was formed within the club to weed out the regulars by force. Arthur Gray, who grew up getting beat up by rich men when he was their servant, knew he'd do the same to the poor when he became rich. So, he decided to lead the society that called themselves 'the rightfuls'.

One by one, the rightfuls began to push the regulars out. First, the Tuckers left, then the Patels, then the Murphys. There were also some supposed to be rightfuls who saw what a toxic pit of power the Tulip was becoming, and decided to leave. Most famously, the Andersons.

Then, when almost every regular was out, came Felix Brown—a potential rightful. A young boy with eyes as if they have lived a thousand years, and arms that have sailed across all the seven seas. He had long golden hair, and a pointed face; his eyes sunken into their sockets, grey crescents resting below them.

He walked out to the pool with a mimosa in his hand. Resting his glass on the table beside the pool chair, he took off his shirt, displaying his frail and scrawny frame; his shoulders narrow as if the air around him was contracting his body, making it close in on himself. There was something defensive about his posture, as if he was bracing for an attack, though he was lazing on the chair, shirtless. Arthur could see a little of himself in Felix.