The Grid Labyrinth

K was awakened by an absolute silence. Not the tranquility proper to the deep night, which contains subtle signs of life, but a complete stillness, a dead quiet as if the universe itself had stopped breathing. He fumbled for the switch by his bed; his finger pressed down, only to be met with a hollow, unresponsive "click." The light didn't turn on. Outside the window, the city, where neon and streetlights once flowed eternally, was now submerged in an unfathomable darkness. Only a few distant stars looked down coldly upon this suddenly silenced land.

A blackout. The thought surfaced, bringing K a strange sense of unease. He remembered childhood blackouts, frequent visitors on summer evenings, accompanied by candlelight, hand fans, and neighborhood chatter. But those blackouts were announced, brief, even tinged with a festive air. The darkness before him now, however, was like a boundless giant net, cast over the entire world without warning, carrying an indisputable authority and cold malice.

He struggled to get up, reaching for his phone. The screen was pitch black. The charging cable was plugged in, but there was no response. Communication signals were gone too. He walked to the window and looked down. The streets were empty; vehicles sat quietly like discarded beetle shells. In the distance, the high-rises, those steel jungles that once symbolized the city's power and pulse, were now just giant, silent silhouettes. An unprecedented panic permeated the air, like fine dust, silently seeping into everyone's pores.

"State of emergency," his elderly neighbor told him through the door, her voice trembling. "The radio was saying... intermittently... National state of emergency. Cause unknown."

Cause unknown. Those two words felt like a dull blade, slowly twisting in K's gut. How could the cause be unknown? Such a vast system, such an intricate power grid covering the lives of millions, how could it completely collapse overnight without reason? He couldn't understand, much less accept it. He had to do something, at least find out why.

K decided to go to the power company to inquire. It seemed the only logical course of action, though in the current darkness, logic itself seemed precarious. He put on his coat and fumbled his way downstairs. The corridor was pitch black, only his footsteps echoing in the emptiness, as if stepping into the corridors of an ancient tomb. It was colder outside; the wind cut like a knife, swirling scraps of paper on the ground with rustling sounds, like the darkness whispering.

Scattered figures began to appear on the street, equally dazed and anxious, like ants lost in a forest. Occasionally, people spoke in low voices, exchanging fragmented hearsay: some said it was a solar storm, others a terrorist attack, and still others hinted mysteriously at some kind of experiment by "them." But no one knew the definite answer.

The power company headquarters stood downtown, a glass tower that was once brilliantly lit, now just a silent behemoth. K pushed open the heavy glass door. Inside, there was light – not electric light, but countless flickering candles and emergency lamps, illuminating the vast hall like some mystical ritual site.

The hall was crowded, more so than K had imagined. People stood in crooked, long queues that stretched into dark corners beyond sight. The air was thick with the smell of sweat, anxiety, and burning candle wax. K joined the end of a queue, feeling like a drop of water merging into the murky river called 'Waiting.'

The queue moved incredibly slowly, almost imperceptibly. Ahead of K stood a middle-aged man in an ill-fitting suit, constantly checking his watch, though the dial was barely visible in the dim light. "This is insane," he muttered. "My fish tank needs constant temperature! My thesis is still on the computer!" His anxiety spread like a virus.

Hours passed. K finally shuffled to the front of the line. Behind the counter sat an expressionless woman, her face exceptionally pale in the candlelight, like an old parchment. Before her lay piles of forms and documents, seemingly endless to process.

"I'd like to ask the reason for the blackout and when the power might be restored," K said, trying to keep his voice calm.

The woman looked up, her vacant eyes sweeping over him as if he were an inanimate object. "Please fill out this form." She handed him a piece of paper, rough to the touch, covered in dense grids and clauses.

"A form?" K was stunned. "I just want to ask a question."

"All inquiries require filling out a form first," the woman stated in a completely flat tone. "Name, address, electricity account number, time the outage began, description of impact... Please fill it out in detail."

"But I don't know the exact time, I woke up and it was like this. Besides, the whole city is out, it's not an individual problem..."

"Rules are rules," the woman interrupted, lowering her head to continue processing the papers in front of her, ignoring him.

K held the cold form, a chill of absurdity rising from his feet. He looked around, seeing everyone holding or filling out similar forms. They were bent over them, their expressions focused and numb, as if filling out the form itself was the purpose, not a means to seek answers. In the face of absolute darkness and chaos, this rigid, cumbersome bureaucratic procedure, like a giant machine, still operated stubbornly, blindly.

He suddenly remembered a story he'd read long ago, about an infinitely extending library containing all books. Now, he felt that this power company hall, these endless forms and queuing people, were a real-life labyrinth. A maze built of rules, procedures, and indifference, where people fruitlessly searched for an exit, or, gradually grew accustomed to the maze itself, forgetting their original purpose.

K didn't fill out the form. He silently backed out of the queue, crumpled the paper into a ball, and tossed it into a waste bin in the corner – already piled high with similar crumpled balls. He walked out of the building, back into the profound darkness. The city remained silent, like a giant, forgotten ruin.

He didn't know when the power would return, nor what this "state of emergency" meant or how long it would last. He even began to wonder if the so-called "cause" even existed. Perhaps this darkness itself was the normal state, and they had merely been living in a false, transient light? Perhaps the vast city, the intricate power grid, and the entire system supporting it were themselves a huge, structurally complex maze, and everyone, whether they realized it or not, was already inside, following predetermined paths, looping endlessly.

K looked up at the night sky. The stars seemed a little brighter, cold and distant. He took a deep breath of the cold air, feeling an unprecedented fatigue and bewilderment. He no longer wanted to search for answers. In this boundless dark labyrinth, perhaps the only thing to do was to keep walking, even without knowing the direction or the destination. He took a step forward, his figure quickly swallowed by the thick darkness, as if he had never existed.