Felix Arlen studied his gold and black uniform in the mirror; he distantly noted that his hat was quite crooked. He fixed it with a moment's effort before letting out a sigh. He knew that he couldn't delay any further, as his shift started in less than a minute, so instead, he turned on the spot and slowly made his way across the room to place his hand on the door handle.

Felix hesitated for a moment, unable to help himself before taking a few deep breaths and then slowly letting them out. Felix was left in a state of calm, where all his tension had vanished, and he was left feeling calm, collected, and empty of fear.

Felix opened the door before taking a single step outside, and his tranquillity shattered like it was the most fragile thing in the world.

The lobby of the hotel was brightly lit with twinkling chandeliers and stylish pillars lining the walls, all made from dark stone. The marble floor glinted in the bright lights, it's surface perfectly smooth and polished immaculately. The large metal doors of the elevators shone back at it, having been cleaned this morning. The lobby was just as pretty as the first thousand times he had seen it, the reason for his lost calm was the numerous people entering and exiting the building.

That was always the same, bellhops, cleaners, security, and more wandered the floor, attending to their duties. At the same time, customers came and left the glass frontage of the building. All of the early risers ready to head out and go about their business for the day.

Felix spotted George, a fellow bellhop, pushing a luggage trolley towards the elevators accompanied by two elderly ladies dressed in pantsuits who tittered at him as they passed.

Felix realized he had been standing still for a rather long while now. Long enough for somebody to notice, and he immediately felt humiliation twist in his stomach.

Felix gathered himself as best he could and turned to head to the drop off zone, located at the front of the hotel, where guests were arriving and leaving. He barely made it a foot towards his destination before he ran straight into an outstretched hand, and he took a step backward to avoid collision with the offending limb. Felix turned to find a tall, impeccably dressed man watching him with a look of disdain on his face.

"Not watching where you are going, Arlen?" Alistair asked sharply.

Felix swallowed down the flash of anger that cut through him and took another step backward. Alistair was a concierge, who also worked in the Golden Salt Hotel, and someone Felix tended to do his best to avoid during his shifts. Unfortunately, it didn't seem he would be able to avoid him today, as Alistair was staring directly at him. Felix almost flinched at the feeling of the man's attention and did his best to crush any sign of a reaction on his face, he made sure to drop his gaze to watch the man's mouth.

"I guess not," Felix said quietly, crossing his arms in front of him like a shield between them.

The contrast between them was interesting, Felix thought. Alistair's body language screamed professionalism and complete confidence in himself. Felix's own was much more closed off, and unsure.

"At least you aren't late," Alistair added when the silence edged towards awkward.

Felix frowned at him and used the feeling of annoyance like a weapon to force himself he felt to speak up.

"I am never late,” Felix said quietly, in his defense.

Alistair studied him for a long moment before suddenly stepping around him and striding off without another comment. Felix glanced over his shoulder in time to catch Alistair speaking charmingly to a guest that was looking relieved for the help. Felix watched the man for a moment, as much as he personally disliked him, there was no doubt that Alistair had an impressive ability to engage and connect with people. He knew the right things to say and the right times to say them to get the most out of every exchange with someone. It seemed to even equip him to deal with his superiors with little effort.

Still, when it came to anyone below Alistair on the totem pole, his silver tongue was quick to turn sharp. He could and would cut you down verbally at the drop of a hat for the smallest perceived mistake or inefficiency.

What felt worse was that Felix had worked at the hotel for years before Alistair had even applied to work here as a Bellhop. Alistair had, with seeming ease, quickly outstripped everyone around him to land where he now resided within the hotel's hierarchy. Felix didn't know where the man drew his confidence from, the kind of confidence that allowed him to easily place himself above others and condescend to those he saw beneath him. The man held no fear of reprisal or repercussion from his words, all carefully chosen to inflict some measure of negative impact on his targets.

Felix sighed at where his thoughts had taken him, the same old circle of negativity that would drag him down for days. Felix opened one of the many glass doors at the front of the hotel and let in a man and woman before surreptitiously studying their clothing as they stepped over the threshold.

Old grey suit for the man, some loose threads near his collar, his tie was crooked as well. The woman was wearing a pantsuit, and some small amount of jewelry was visible. Young, well-dressed, but not wealthy.

The man and the woman thanked him as they passed, and he allowed the door to shut behind them before Felix mumbled hello and stepped forward to take their luggage. He placed it on the nearest available trolley and moved to follow them as they headed towards the front counter. Felix stood a distance away while they spoke to Alice, a tall thin woman with a long nose, one of the many receptionists employed by the hotel.

Felix waited quietly, watching the three of them exchange Smalltalk and clamped down on the twinge of alarm he felt when the man laughed suddenly. Alice stood from her chair to unlock the cabinet behind her and grabbed a tiny key off the hook, the numbers were too far away for him to read. The tiny font didn't help, but Felix managed to spot the newly created gap on the hooks before she slid the cabinet door closed, six down, four across.

Cabinet one, room six-zero-four.

Felix watched as they continued talking, and this time when the woman laughed, he was ready for the sudden noise. The two guests stepped away from the counter and turned back towards him. When they approached, Felix turned the trolley towards the elevators and started to push without a word. Felix entered the elevator first and moved the trolley to the back and out of the way so that the other two had enough space to step inside.

The door shut behind them, and they were facing him, so Felix turned to face the trolley, pretending to straighten the luggage. They spoke to each other during the short trip upwards, and with each passing moment, Felix became more aware of his heart thudding in his chest. The man laughed at something the woman had said, and Felix's ears burned, certain that it had to have been at his expense but somehow having heard none of the words. Humiliation welled up, but he fought it down.

His anxiety was surging up despite his best efforts, he knew logically that they hadn't been laughing at him, or even talking about him at all. Still, he couldn't help the reaction, he'd been this way for a long time now, and it only seemed to get worse with every passing day. He would feel an awful pressure build up inside his chest, rising like the tide and making him feel hyperaware of everything around him.

Felix knew he was reading far too deeply into every action other people would make, but at the moment, it felt like every action people took was part of some hidden narrative to strike at him through manipulation or calculated words. It had crushed any form of connection he could ever have made with others. He had ended up drawing away from his friends, and it had killed any longing to repair them or even wanting to make any more. Felix had resorted to seeking out interaction on the internet; away from the crushing pressure, he felt every time someone so much as glanced his way.

Sometimes he wouldn't feel as if he were so crushingly alone.

Felix glanced at the two in the elevator with him before returning to stare at the luggage, as if it might run away should he remove his attention from it for even an instant.

Would they ask him something soon? Did they think him rude for not facing them, for not speaking to them? Was he making them feel awkward? Would they report him to management for acting unsightly? A surge of guilt joined the panic, would they accuse him of something, or tell a member of staff about him? It would be their word against his, two against one.

 Felix managed to crush the panic down when he remembered the cameras. Everything was being watched, it would be fine, he hadn't done anything at all. He forced himself to take a quiet but deep breath, making sure to keep his shoulders and chest locked to hide the motion.

Something like that had happened before; only a single complaint that he had made a guest feel awkward when he didn't speak up, but nothing had ever come of it. A verbal warning, from his then superior, to present better to the guests to avoid any more complaints in the future. They had never written anything down, and the boss that had overseen those complaints had long since retired. He'd had a clean slate at present, and he wanted it to stay that way.

Felix felt a flash of anger cut through his chest at the elevators speed, the ride seemed to drag on forever. With every word the two guests spoke to each other, he could feel his anxiousness building. Even more, he could see hidden insults directed his way, and he had to reassure himself that they were talking about someone else, they didn't even know him.

The elevator dinged, and the noise dragged Felix out of the panic. It dipped as they stepped out of the elevator and away from him.

Felix took another deep breath and rolled the trolley out into the hall, before turning right. He moved past where they had stopped in the hall, and in the direction that would lead them to the door, six-zero-four. He stopped in front of it and almost breathed a sigh of relief as the task was almost finished. Felix glanced over and accidentally caught the woman's eye and immediately noticed that they were both looking at him strangely, the panic returned greater than before.

"How did you know which room was ours?" The woman asked curiously. "You didn't even ask which one it was."

The woman's curiosity felt more like suspicion to him. She pulled out the keys from her handbag and dangled them in front of her like a cat with a toy; a tiny back '604' was written on the tag. The man nodded and made a 'hmm' noise, scrunching up his face in thought. Felix forced himself to speak up.

"Alice, the receptionist, told me in advance," Felix said quietly.

"Of course, how silly of me." She laughed easily.

The man noised out another 'hmm' but much more loudly than before and shook his head at her obnoxiously, the woman swatted him on the arm, looking amused. The man nodded at Felix in thanks, and the two began taking the luggage into their room.

The door shut behind them when they had finished, and Felix slowly moved back the way he'd come, taking his time, savoring the silence and solitude of the now-empty hall. The awful feelings that had overtaken him were vanishing slowly on the trip back. When he finally stepped back inside the elevator, he was relieved to find it empty. Felix pressed the button for the lobby and listened as it hummed when the floor ticked down to the first floor, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

The door opened with a ding, and Felix stepped out into the lobby, ready to do it all over again.

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Grant Baker, the Bell captain, and Felix's direct superior pulled him aside sometime later and told him that he would be interviewing the next batch of potentials later this afternoon. Grant wanted Felix to come with him, so he had someone to get a second point of view from; the hotel had become very picky about who it hired these days after a messy lawsuit with one of the previous hires. As a result, the hiring decisions weren't made at all lightly. Felix mumbled his agreement quietly. This wasn't something new for him, It was something that had occurred nearly every time someone quit.

Originally, years ago now, Grant had been the one trying for the bellhop position, and Felix had sat in on that batch of interviews as well, alongside the previous Bell captain. Felix still didn't know why the old Captain had picked him to do it, but it had become almost routine at this point. It was funny Felix thought, that now Grant had been promoted to bell captain, and he was still just a bellhop.

Believe it or not, Felix wasn't bitter, Grant was a decent guy; he did his work, he adjusted shifts for emergency's without too much complaining, and he never acted on a guest's complaints in haste. Felix could at least take heart in the fact that Alistair had been promoted laterally out of being a bellhop before Felix had ever had the chance to work under him; Felix might've taken a one-way trip to the roof of the hotel if that had been the case.

When his shift finally ended, Felix headed off to the changing room to get out of his uniform and into black business slacks and a black dress shirt with the hotel's logo on it. He spent a moment tidying himself in the mirror and made his way out of the room and towards a section of the building on the first floor that held some office space. Felix spotted the small conference room that was attached to a waiting room filled with chairs, the area hidden out of view of the main hotel lobby by a large divider.

The waiting and conference rooms were empty of people, save for himself. The conference room existed for the management to handle things that a simple bellhop would have no reason to be included on, so he didn't know what it was used for, but it also happened to be where the job interviews were conducted.

The room itself was dominated by a large black oval table and a whiteboard built into the wall at the far side while black leather chairs lined the table. Grant wasn't there yet and probably wouldn't be for another hour, so he let himself into the conference room and found a seat on the opposite side furthest from the door, taking care not to sit at the head of the table.

Felix placed his head down on the table and did his best to cherish the silence.

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Nearly an hour later Grant finally appeared, leading a small group of men and woman through the hotel lobby and into the waiting room, once they were all seated Grant spoke to them for a brief moment, likely reassuring them before he entered the conference room and shut the door behind him. Grant sat down next to Felix with a loud drawn-out sigh.

"That bad?" Felix asked quietly, as close to at ease as he had been all day.

"I'm just being a drama queen," Grant replied tiredly.

Felix didn't feel quite as worried with people he had known for a long time or those he had spent a great deal of time around. Funnily enough, if a person was acting openly hostile or presented themselves as an adversary of sorts, his anxiousness dropped a great deal, which wasn't much help, as actively hostile people were few and far between.

Felix had long since figured out part of the problem if he didn't know how a person would respond to him; his imagination would run wild, and his body would quickly drag itself into a fight or flight response. If he spent a great deal of time around a person or interacted with them regularly, he would slowly be able to map out a series of expected responses from them, and he didn't feel like they would suddenly attack him for a perceived mistake.

Felix had noticed that people rarely did things in a workplace environment, at least, that exceeded those responses by too much, unless they were under great amounts of pressure, panic, stress, anger, or excitement. Felix figured he could avoid them when they deviated too greatly from the mental model that he built of them. It didn't always work, unfortunately; you couldn't always avoid people you worked with; in fact, it was impossible in some cases.

Felix did his best to mitigate his anxiety, to overcome the need to crawl up into a ball and hide from the world. None of these tricks helped when the situation involved people he had never met, or only recently became acquaintances, like when the guests entered the hotel, which was only every single working day.

"Alright," Grant said, "We have a total of four people applying, two for Bellhop, two for receptionist."

Felix nodded but hesitated before speaking.

"Receptionist?" Felix prompted quietly.

They were usually put through a different interview process by one of the upper managers. Grant's job as bell captain usually only required him to hire people that worked directly below him. Had whoever usually hired the receptionist handed off the job to Grant?

"Oh, Darcy; the guy who usually does it is still on long service leave. I have to fill in for the next couple of weeks." Grant explained tiredly.

Felix nodded in understanding before dropping the subject to avoid annoying him further. There was only one position for each role at the hotel, one receptionist, and one bellhop. Only four candidates were in the waiting room, two for each position, most likely. The hotel tended to only hire female counter staff and male bellhops; if this was sexist or not, Felix wasn't sure. The two women in the waiting room were likely here for the reception job, and likewise, the men for the bellhop position.

Grant messed with his phone for a moment before finally turning it off and standing up. He went to the door and opened it.

"Steven?" Grant called pleasantly, "Please come on through."

Grant held the door open, and the man who was presumably Steven, stepped through, he didn't look at all surprised to see Felix at the table which meant that Grant must have warned them that he would be sitting in. Grant shut the door and directed Steven to a seat, before sitting himself across from the man at the large table.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Felix had a good angle off to the side to look straight down the length of it at them both. Steven was an older man, late forties at his best guess. His clothes were professional but well worn. He had mid-length hair that just brushed his shoulders and a full but maintained beard. He would have to shave it off for the job; if he refused, he would likely be quickly denied. The image was everything to the hotel.

Steven's body language wasn't confident exactly, although it held a lot of the hallmarks of a confident person, he wasn't insecure either. It was a combination he had seen before in people who had taken many interviews and rarely gotten callbacks. It bordered on uncaring or indifferent; he had one leg lying over his knee at the ankle. He presented good responses, well-practiced, which showed that he was used to the interview process, and he spoke with a level voice at a steady pace, completely unrushed. Steven had good social skills, and from the man's answers, he was likely looking for a long-term role, which was exactly the kind of thing they wanted. Steven had no higher education other than a high school certificate, but it didn't matter for a bellhop.

Felix turned to study Grant for a moment, he seemed more distant than normal, tired, and distracted, but it wasn't the interview that was responsible, he had noticed it earlier as well; something was weighing on him. Steven may have noticed at some point because he began to show signs of closing off, thinking he was already unlikely to get the job. Grant would, in turn, see that as a lack of enthusiasm and think that Steven was just going through the motions of the interview, answering by rote.

When they finished the interview, Grant stood and shook Steven's hand. They exchanged pleasantries, and he led him out the door, Grant returned and made some quick notes on his pad of paper and flipped it over to a new page. Steven wouldn't be making the shortlist unless the other candidate was truly terrible.

If Felix had to go through this process now, he knew he wouldn't have a chance of being hired again. He had only gotten in because his father had known one of the people who were responsible for hiring new employees years ago. Felix's father and mother had both long since passed, and the man who had hired him no longer worked at the hotel. Nepotism wouldn't help him a second time, Felix knew.

Grant brought the next person in immediately, and it was a woman this time, in her mid-twenties. She was smiling brightly, but she was hunching her shoulders slightly, trying to make herself smaller; she was nervous, worried, and anxious but had it under control. Her feet were pointed at the captain, and she leaned forward to engage him easily; she was eager and directed all her attention at the captain.

Her top button was also undone, and Felix dragged his eyes away from it, annoyed at himself.

She was energetic but nervous, she fumbled some of her words, but wasn't embarrassed by the mistakes; laughing at herself easily, she was resilient. The captain would probably note the fumbling down as a mark against her communication score, but Felix didn't see it as anything that would truly hamper her when communicating with guests. It would be a mark against her, though even if a small one, the hotel didn't want to hire someone that would give the guests a poor image.

Her foot was jumping lightly on the floor, indicated excitement or high tension, probably both. She was also doing something with her eyes, switching her gaze between Grant's left and right eye every few seconds; it made them catch the light. She was enthusiastic and optimistic; she would likely be a positive influence on the other staff members once she integrated. She was a good choice for short midterm and would likely be promoted into a sales role or even a concierge, once she began to refine her social skills and grew into the role.

Grant thanked her, seemingly pleased with the interview, and wrote down some quick notes then brought the next one in, another man this time, tall, fit, good looking, and his shoulders were held back naturally, real confidence that wasn't faked. He was also noticeably younger; Felix would put him at nineteen at most. He answered all the questions without a problem, he was quick-witted and sharp of mind. He handled the back and forth well, didn't derail the interview in any way, and he was focused.

He didn't offer anything without being asked, however, and his posture was sending up red flags, the man was sprawled slightly in the chair, owning his environment, it was a calculated show of confidence. One of his feet was aimed at the door, which indicated he didn't want to be here, but he maintained eye contact perfectly and deferred to Grant's responses several times, which showed he would likely be able to take directions. Now and then he would glance out the window, or at Felix.

He would be a perfect fit, but he was also showing signs that he didn't want to be here. Was he pressured to apply for the job? It could be, at his young age, but it didn't feel quite right. He might have seen the job as a bellhop as beneath him. Glancing at the copy of his resume sitting in front of Felix revealed some more details, he was a high achiever. He likely wanted a position somewhere higher up the food chain at the hotel. Which would make this his method of getting a foot in the door, would try to get promoted up and out of the position quickly. If that did happen, he wouldn't be here for long if it didn't, he might just leave. He probably wouldn't be a long-term solution for a bellhop. Grant had noticed his affected lack of care midway through the interview and pushed him a bit with the questions as a test, but he got through completely unscathed.

Grant walked him to the door and made some more notes before he brought in the last person, a woman, sharp features, stern expression. Late thirties early forties, polished social skills, good posture, confident, and easily maintained eye contact with the captain. Grant seems a little bit intimidated, as this woman appears as if she comes from somewhere far higher up the food chain then a simple bell captain like Grant.

Grant fumbled a question, and the woman titters at him; he's flagging now, is completely off his game, and slightly embarrassed at the mistake. Grant shifts, and now his feet are pointed at the door. The woman is forceful, direct, and focused, it seemed calculated but still genuine to a degree, she has used her body language as a weapon throughout the interview. Probably the best candidate by far for a receptionist, but Grant will likely choose someone else because of the embarrassment.

A miscalculation on her part perhaps, but she would be shortlisted for the next open receptionist spot, or more likely a Concierge. Grant led her to the door, and she vanished out of the room and through the lobby, the waiting room was empty now when Grant returned to sprawl in his chair and let out another long sigh before marking down a few more things.

Grant, Felix noted once more, had been a bit off lately, tired and stressed, it had become more noticeable after he finished talking with someone from upper management last week. Grant was either going to be promoted laterally into a management role, which this most recent hiring task pointed at, or he was thinking of resigning due to pressure from above. Felix wondered who was going to get Grant's job if he did leave, It certainly wouldn't be the first time Felix was passed over, the turnover rate at this place was obscene, how he had managed to keep his job for this long Felix would probably never know.

"Well, what do you think?" Grant asked tiredly, looking at him from his seat.

Felix watched him quietly for a moment before he spoke up.

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Felix opened the door to his apartment and stepped inside. He could almost physically feel the tension vanish from his body, the walls around him feeling like a shield between him and a world filled with people. He strode over to his bed and immediately flopped face-first onto it, content to do nothing until his body forced him into motion again.

The apartment was small, and it was not much more than a single multi-purpose room; a small kitchen, with a white rolling divider wall that stretched from floor to ceiling, blocked off the kitchen from the bedroom, there was a single door that led to the attached bathroom, with only a shower and toilet inside. A cheap couch lay against a flat space of wall opposite his computer, perched on a desk. The apartment was cheap, functional, and he made sure to keep it neat and tidy.

Felix had noticed over the years, that his mental state worsened the messier his living situation became and keeping it as free of clutter as he could defiantly help alleviate some of the stress. Eventually, he was forced to get up and use the bathroom, so he peeled off the clothes he had worn to the interview and placed them into a basket to be washed in the morning.

While most people would be getting ready to go out on a Friday and find adventures within the ample nightlife in the city, Felix had quite different plans. He would eat his dinner, browse the internet for several hours, play video games and then go to bed, it was the same pattern that he had followed for years, and he had found no compelling reason for him to change it. He had many acquaintances, but he had no friends; he wasn't a part of any social group or activities, and he didn't have any hobbies.

Playing video games had once filled the spot of a hobby for him, and he still did it almost every day, but like most things, in life, he found that he now experienced no joy, happiness, or feeling of accomplishment from it. He simply continued out of habit, having spent so much time doing it, it was something he was good at if only because he had become so very well-practiced, the sunk cost fallacy urged him ever onwards.

Felix ate his dinner, browsed the internet for hours, played video games, and then went to bed, the pattern remained unbroken.

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Felix stared out of his apartment window at all of the people walking the streets. This Saturday morning was slightly different than most, as there was a political march taking place in the city today, apparently in about an hour, and the crowds of people had already started flooding into the streets to attend it. These types of things had been becoming more common in recent years, more people able to organize and form groups, and those groups spreading the information even further online, social media at its most effective.

This march was for bringing about free higher education for everyone; it was an interesting topic. Felix wondered if he had been able to afford to go to university back when he was still amidst his education, would he have gone? And If he had gone, what would his life have been like? Would he have become a different person than he was now, perhaps without all his social problems and hang-ups?

He didn't know; he doubted it, though.

Felix had noted that life tended to follow the same patterns over and again, and without a massive change, it would continue set in its ways. Something else would have come along and knocked him down, he would still have distanced himself from others physically and closed himself off emotionally. He would have still ended up right where he was now, only he would have a higher paying job, he supposed and could buy more useless things that brought him no joy.

Perhaps he could have bought a better apartment, a bigger one even. Felix didn't even feel bad about it, not really. When Felix was on his own, he didn't feel much of anything, he just felt empty and void of anything at all. He didn't hold any bitterness, hate, jealousy, or anger for others; He felt nothing but indifference. There was no motivation to improve his situation, he just existed in the hole that he had dug for himself, never even bothering to lift his head and stare up at the sky.

He had done it to himself, forced himself not to feel anything to protect himself from being hurt and vulnerable, but he had become so good at wearing it, that he had seemingly become the amour. Years later, now, it just sapped him of any positive feelings entirely, and the amour had become startling fragile when he had to interact with other people.

Felix couldn't imagine a more useless form of protection.

He was watching one of the many live streams of the march, and the reporter walked confidently down the main street with her camera crew a step behind her, talking about everything without a shred of hesitation. People waved at the camera in passing, with smiles on their faces, happy to be a part of something they deemed so important.

Felix wondered idly about what it would feel like to join them, to feel so strongly about something that he might even act to advocate for it? He hadn't ever been to anything like it, so he couldn't simulate the experience in his mind, at least not accurately. Felix tried to imagine being inside the crowd of people, all with goals that had enough meaning to drive them out onto the streets to cry out for what they wanted amongst like-minded individuals. He wondered what it would be like to stand among them, nobody knowing who he was, or why he was there, to be among people who felt so strongly and to be a part of something.

Surprisingly, Felix didn't feel a rising surge of panic at the thought he found he almost wanted to go. Felix watched the Livestream for a while longer, but the thought had remained stuck in his mind. Felix could go, join the march and do something, nobody he knew would be there, and if they were it would be impossible for them to find him, and nobody would be expecting anything from him; he would be just another random nobody among a crowd of tens of thousands.

Felix noted that his foot was jumping against the floor, and he stared at it, he was excited, Felix couldn't remember the last time he had felt excited about anything at all. He checked the time on his computer and then found the bus schedule taped to his wall.

The next bus into downtown left in fifteen minutes, and Felix decided that he was going to be on it.

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The bus was running late, and with the number of people that were traversing the streets, it had resulted in an impossible to keep a schedule for even the most diligent of bus drivers. All they could do was soldier on and try not to fall any further behind, but when even that failed, they were content to just soldier on.

The march was starting on the east side of the city and cutting through the main strip to the west. Felix lived on the west side but fairly central, and it was a thirty-minute bus ride, during normal traffic to cross the city. It would likely take him an hour, at least, to get there with all the people interrupting the flow of traffic. He decided on a compromise, he would ride the bus to the central business district, wait on the main strip for the march to reach the halfway point and then slip into the crowd. The march would reach its endpoint only a few blocks away from his apartment anyway, how convenient.

The bus came into view from around a corner, taking another minute to wait for the pedestrians to cross in front of it, it drove through the traffic lights and paused in front of Felix at the bus stop. The doors opened, and a deluge of people spilled out chatting to each other, heads turning to take in the area. Once they had cleared to the entrance, he joined the newly formed queue to enter the bus.

Felix started to feel the panic well up, as the person who was standing behind Felix jostled him. He bumped into the woman in front of him and immediately held himself rigid and made sure to allow a noticeable gap form between them. The woman didn't turn around, and Felix released the breath he had been holding. When he was at the front of the queue, Felix tapped his card on the machine and stepped further into the bus.

Still mostly empty, with Felix having been near the front of the line, he made sure to take a window seat near the back of the bus so he could avoid the gaze of anyone by looking out the window. Once all the occupants on the bus were dealt with, the doors closed, and the bus started forward with a hissing noise. The front of the bus dipped alarmingly deep into the oncoming lane before straightening back onto the correct side of the street.

Felix stared out the window and watched the city pass by.

Saltwall City was a metropolis, and skyscrapers pierced the sky in the hundreds. It was a very densely populated city, something like seven million people lived here. A series of trains ran under the city while buses and taxi's dominated the streets, ferrying people back and forth. Felix lost his train of thought for a moment when he spotted his workplace peeking over the top of another building in the distance.

The 'Golden Salt' hotel had its name spelled across the top of the building in large golden stylized letters, golden tracery, and highlights broke up the dark glass of the building. It was forty-nine floors tall, an absolute goliath of a building. Felix watched it for a moment before it was cut off from view by another building.

Felix had lived in this city for most of his life, having moved here with his parents when he was only a child. His father had been offered a management job in the very same hotel, around about when Felix had been at high school age. Felix himself had been hired to work as a bellhop through a friend his father had made while working there. His father had used that connection at the first chance he had, and Felix had been there ever since. But when Felix had turned nineteen, both of his mother and father had died in a car accident, the cause of which determined as a no-fault collision.

Felix missed them greatly, they had loved him and supported him. After they had died, he hadn't felt the same, he had stopped going to his appointments, stopped meeting with friends. Stopped doing everything that had previously held any type of meaning for him. Idly Felix wondered if his parents would have been proud of him if they had still been around.

Felix couldn't imagine why they would.

Drumming up the courage to get on the bus was the most initiative Felix had managed to muster in years. If it didn't go well, it might well be the last time he bothered. The bus was getting close now, he could see the construction site that seemed to forever exist in a sort of paperwork limbo, originally it was going to be another grandiose hotel, one of many in the city. But the money had mysteriously dried up halfway through the project, and it had been stuck as an unfinished mess ever since something for the people at the supermarket across the street to forever stare at in disgust.

The bus finally came to a stop, and he stopped looking at the building and started to pay attention to the people. Thousands of them stood on the street, on the sidewalk, and tucked away in the shops that lined the main street of the city. Felix exited the bus, and he was immediately subsumed into the crowd, he was bumped back and forth for a while before he picked a direction and started walking, which alleviated most of the collisions. The throngs of people almost held a tidal force, and he felt himself being pulled along in their wake. Felix's heart thudded in his chest, but it wasn't in panic, but excitement. He wasn't afraid, Felix thought, but quickly realized he was walking in the wrong direction and twisted around, slipping into the flow of people going in the opposite direction.

The crowd, despite its vastness, was dwarfed in presence by the buildings on both sides of the street, tall multi-floor shopping complexes, hotels, and corporate buildings that scraped at the sky. The people in the street were starting to pull back away from the road in places all along the street and tried to join the people on the sidewalk, and people were suddenly packed tight against the buildings.

Felix found himself stuck against one of the trees that sprung up out of the sidewalk every ten meters or so. The front of the march was in sight, and the front line of people spanned the entire width of the road. They carried banners, flags, signs, giant hands, and a multitude of other objects. They cheered as they marched west down the street, and the people on the sidewalk cheered and yelled in return.

Felix watched it in awe before he was abruptly struck in the side of the face with an elbow, which belonged to a man who was punching the air in his excitement. Felix turned to face away from him and found himself facing a young woman, roughly his age, who was pressed face-first against him, and Felix met her eyes.

She wore a brown coat and a beanie with two dangling baubles on her head, long brown hair streamed out and down her back. The woman looked remarkably at home with the situation with a grin on her face. A surge of panic welled up in his chest at the proximity and the eye contact, and Felix tried to step backward, but he was stuck.

A young man, in the same age range, stood next to her, he was tall, muscular, and blonde. The blonde man was in much the same position, and like Felix had, his hand braced against the tree above the woman's head. Someone bumped him, and he stumbled forward a step, and he knocked Felix's hand from the tree. Felix flinched back from them and twisted around again to face the other direction, deliberately staring over the heads of people, and refusing to accidentally meet another pair of eyes.

Felix felt humiliation well up in him and couldn't believe that he had come here. This was a terrible idea, Felix thought miserably. He caught a flash of light in his peripheral vision and turned his head back towards the two people and looked over their heads. The light was gone, but abruptly there was another flash of light, and his eyes snapped over to it in reflex.

There was a commotion in the throng of people before him, the crowd was opening before someone and closing behind them. Felix turned back around to try and identify what was happening behind them. Whoever it was coming up the sidewalk and towards the tree, they were pressed against, and quite quickly.

Further behind the moving obstruction he could see a bunch of the same gaps opening and closing, but he could see the torso and upper body of one exceedingly tall man, in a black suit and sunglasses pushing his way through the crowds in the same direction, there were no flashes of light in that group. A group of people chasing someone with a flashlight maybe.

Another flash of light, golden light, he noted, not a flashlight occurred between the tall man and Felix, but much closer now. His mind trying to connect the dots as someone yelled and fell backward after another golden flash.

What was happening?

Whoever it was, they were almost at the tree now, and a small feminine hand suddenly reached out and grabbed the blonde man on his forearm and with a flash of golden light, clearly being emitted from the palm of her hand. The blonde man started to collapse, but before he went all the way to the ground, he managed to grab the attacker's arm and wrenched it towards him. The blonde man collapsed backward into the tree, and Felix reached out to steady him, but the man fell straight onto Felix in a heap, knocking them both to the ground.

The owner of the hand, with some detailed golden pattern on it, had fallen on top of them both. It was a woman with long black hair and pale white skin. She was wide-eyed and frantic, she wore an extremely ruffled pantsuit, solid black. The woman in the beanie reached down to help the golden-hand woman up, and she took the offered hand with another flash of blinding golden light before the beanie girl went down in a heap as well.

Felix stared at the golden-hand woman as she pulled herself to her knees and settled her frantic gaze on him. She reached out, and Felix immediately kicked her in the face as hard as he could and tried to through himself backward against the still yelling crowd, his shoe flew off, and the lady let out a cry of pain at the hit, but she kept on coming without even a hint of hesitation and Felix had nowhere to go, so he fell back on tried and true methods, attempting to kick her in the face again but she blocked it easily with her palm. It felt like kicking a stone wall this time, and a burst of pain shot up his leg, her hand clenched around the bottom of his foot, and with a flash of golden light, Felix knew no more.

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