The Biggest Blackout of the City

It started off as a normal Monday morning. I was scheduled to go in to work at twelve today, so I was able to spend my morning getting things done around my house. Today’s task was to clean, I live by myself so I don’t always think about putting things away when I’m done with them, It’s only really my living room that’s a mess. I plugged in my vacuum and my lights flickered but I didn’t think anything of it cause the house is old so sometimes things like lights flickering happen. I kept on about the cleaning and finished vacuuming the floor as I went to unplug the vacuum all of my power went out and this raised more questions so I ventured outside to see if I could tell if my neighbors had power. To my surprise, while I was walking out my door everyone else had been walking out of their doors at the same time. Everyone said their power was also out, I went back inside to grab my phone since it seem dumb to leave it plugged up when it couldn’t even charge right now. It was almost time for me to get ready for work so I went ahead and got ready early and headed to the store. I arrived at the store twenty minutes early and the power was out here as well and the store is empty. I’m one of the managers and all the other managers have my number, you would think they would have shot me a text or tried to call me and tell me not to worry about coming in. 

Trying to think of what I could do now seemed to be a little hard there isn’t a single light on in any of the buildings surrounding the store, I wonder if there is power on anywhere because so far it seems like the whole city is in the dark. No news notifications have come through on my phone which leaves me clueless about what is going on in the city. I decided to just drive around town and see if any buildings are lit up, right now it makes no sense to try and call the electric company to see what’s going on because if all the city’s power is out then their’s should be too. I only went down the main streets and streets that had big businesses and still, not a single light was on. This was all feeling very strange, why would the power just go out? Not knowing what was going on I decided to drive to a friend's house to see if he was home and if he had heard anything about the power. I get there and climb out of my car and join him on the porch.

“Hey, Mikayla, what brings you by today?” he asked with a smirk on his face as though he already knew what I had in mind.

“Well, Jonathon I’m sure you’ve realized by now your power is out and it would seem that the power is out everywhere,” I sat down beside him looking around to see if maybe one of his neighbors had power.

“Yea my power is out but I didn’t know the power was out everywhere I’ve just been chilling out here soaking up the daylight since I can’t soak up anything on tv,” he didn’t really seem to care about the power being out he just seemed upset he couldn’t watch his sitcoms. “Mikayla, did you only come over because the power was out?”

“Kind of, I was also going to see if you wanted to drive around with me to see if there was power anywhere?” he stared at me like I was crazy. “Don’t look at me like that you know it’s weird that the power is out, you have to be wondering what’s going on.”

“Yea I am kind of curious give me a second I have to grab my car keys,” he got up and started to walk inside and motioned for me to follow.

As soon as we buckled up he was down the road yet he says my driving is scary. Maybe he’s right and although his driving could give me a heart attack he’s also careful he just drives too fast sometimes but always know exactly when to start hitting his break. I am grateful that he wanted to drive because now I can have a better lookout for any power source. 

“So, Mikayla where should we start, you said you’ve already checked some places so there’s no reason to waste time double-checking.” he glanced at me as we were going down the road.

“I don’t know where to go I’ve already been down the main roads and checked out all the big businesses in town,” I stopped to think for a second. “What if we go to the edge of the city and try checking the buildings that are just on the other side of the city line.”

“That sounds like a great idea. If we do see some source of power we could always go all the way to the next city to see if their business has any power or any information on what’s going on in our city,” for a second I forgot it was Jonathon talking usually he’s never willing to do anything like this he just wants to lounge around and watch all the newest tv shows he hears about.

I am glad he was willing to drive with me because it would probably be extremely boring if I was by myself. Since the street lights are out we decided to take the back roads to try and avoid other cars. All we see right now are empty fields with tall grass. Jonathon started to speed up a little and that’s when I saw it.

“We’re still in our city right?” I asked as I was staring at the bright light in the center of one of the empty fields.

“I think so, why do you see something?” he looked over to check and see what I was staring at.

“I think I see a light in the middle of that field, should we go to it and check?” I started to look around for an opening in the field for us to drive through instead of going through the grass.

“Yea for sure we should check it out.” Before I even knew what was happening we were already in the midst of the tall grass.

“Oh my God, Jonathon we could have tried to find a side road or something what if we get stuck driving through all this grass?” I could feel myself starting to get loud with him.

“Mikayla it’ll be fine your with me you don’t have to start yelling,” he kept pushing through the grass like he knew exactly what he was doing.

“I’m sorry you’re right I don’t need to start getting loud but what were you thinking this grass is taller than the car and it’s too thick to see through.” Jonathan isn’t from here he actually grew up in Florida but moved here to be closer to some of his other family members.

“I’m an outdoorsman I’ve done stuff like this before all the time when I was a teenager.” He looked over at me trying to reassure me that we would live through this. 

“Alright, I’m sure we'll be fine. I’m just not used to doing stuff like this, you know me I go to work and then I go home and I only go out when I don't have to work that day.” I know I can trust him to not let anything happen but it is still scary. 

“Great because we’re already too far away from the road to turn around just because you’re a little nervous.” the grass is starting to get thinner and Jonathon seems to be more sure of himself now.

We finally approached the light and it wasn’t just a light we saw it was a building that was fully lit up. It looks like an old building but I’ve never heard of it. The building looks like a factory but there aren’t any signs anywhere that say if it is or not. Jonathan parked that car and started to get out.

“Jonathon what are you doing are you sure you wanna get out of the car?” I stared at him in disbelief.

“The power is out in all of the city except for this one building so yes I’m getting out. You wanted to go on an adventure to find out what was wrong with the power either carry through with finding out what’s going on or stay in the car. Either way, I’m getting out to get a better look.” He was right it was my idea I guess I should get out with him.

“You’re right but we need to hurry the sun is probably gonna set soon,” I hurried up and jumped out of the car. 

We walked as quickly as we could to the building both of us keeping an eye out to see if somebody is hiding out in the field. It looked like there were thousands of wires going into this building, maybe someone is stealing the power from the city. 

“Do you think we should try and get into the building and look around I doubt we’ll find anything on the outside?” I looked over at Jonathon to see if he was going to find the way in or if I needed to since it was my idea. “Here Jonathon we can go this way,” without thinking I busted my hand through the closest window.

“Wow, I can’t believe you just did that. Let’s go in I’ll climb through first and pull you in.” Jonathon grasped onto the window and made his way in.

I saw him looking around and then he reached his hand out for mine. After we were both inside we started looking around more. We haven’t seen anybody else and so far we haven’t heard anyone else either. We noticed a control panel on the wall across the room from us so I started heading over to it. Jonathon must have realized what I was doing because he followed closely behind me. 

“Should we mess with the panel Jonathon?” I asked him a little scared and kind of hoping he would say no.

“Yes, we should, maybe if we turn the panel off him the power will return to the rest of the city,” he sounded like he was trying to make sure I wasn’t going to get myself worked up but I could also hear a hint of worry in his voice.

“What if since we both have our phones on us we share our location with each other to get the exact location? Then instead of touching the panel ourselves we can go to the police and tell them what we saw,” I was trying to think of a way we could go about this without us getting into more trouble than what we’re probably going to for breaking in.

“We could but who’s to say that they’ll be able to do anything?” Now his voice is filled with worry.

“Jonathon I’m sure they’ll do something right now they’re without power too. I’m sure their jobs are harder without power it can’t hurt to try.” I started to head to the window we came in from with hopes that he would follow me.

“You’re right, they have to do something, the power is out everywhere except for here.” He followed me to the window and boosted me through the window letting me exit before him.

After we got back into the car we saved the location and started heading to the police station. Getting to the police station didn’t feel like it took half of the time to get there compared to finding the building in the field. We sat in the car for a couple of minutes trying to figure out what exactly we were going to say.

“I think we should just tell them exactly what happened,” I looked over to see if Jonathon was going to agree with me.

“Yea we should, I guess now we should go ahead and go in. The faster we tell them the faster they can try and do something about it.” Jonathon unbuckled and started to get out of the car. 

We both walked to the door, I think we were both a little nervous that the cops would just tell us we were crazy and to not worry about it and that they have it taken care of. We walked straight up to the counter to talk to the officer sitting there.

“Hello, how can I help you young folk today?” The officer was an older man with a strong voice.

“Well, we actually came here to talk about the power outage,” the officer didn’t look to intrigued that we were here about the power.

“The powers nothing you kids should have to worry about the police here have it all taken care of you guys should just go home,” in disbelief that he didn’t even want to hear what we were going to say left me staring at him.

“Officer she’s not good at talking to people but I am and we are no children. We also believe we have some information that might be able to help. I would also bet that the information would be extremely helpful because we haven’t seen a single cop car out today which means you probably know nothing. The electric company can’t call you and tell you what’s going on if you guys all use landlines that require electricity to work.” I couldn’t believe Jonathon had spoken up like that I’ve never heard him say that much at once.

“Officer Daniels can you come over here,” the officer belted out at someone behind him. “Daniels I need you to take their statement and get back to me when you’re done.”

“Yes, sir will do.” Officer Daniels looked a little annoyed that we were getting pushed off on him. “You guys can follow me over to my desk,” we did as he said hoping he would actually listen to us. “Sir do you wanna start talking first or are you gonna let the lady.” He glanced between the both of us.

“Yea I’ll talk first. A little while after the power went out Mikayla here showed up at my house to see if I was also in the dark. When we noticed we were not the only ones in the dark we drove around to see if anyone had power at all. We decided to go to the edge of town and see if the surrounding cities had power. We were taking the back roads when we noticed in the middle of one of the supposed to be empty fields that had a building completely lit up with all sorts of wires going into the building.” Jonathon really was using his time in the police station to let his voice shine.

“Alright well, that’s a lot. Would you guys be willing to take a drive with me and another officer so we can see this building for ourselves?” Daniels started to stand up so we can go.

“Yes, if it can help return the power to everyone we will definitely ride with you,” I answered before Jonathon got the chance afraid he would say no.

We didn’t know if we were supposed to follow Officer Daniels, so we sat at his desk and waited for him to come back with another officer. Daniels had walked back with who I assume is his partner.

“Alright guys we're gonna go to this building and then after that I want the two of you to go home and let us handle it the rest of the way,” he looked at us like he was giving us a choice but we knew he wasn’t.

We all climb into the cop car and Jonathon started giving directions. We finally make it to the field and unlike what Jonathon did the officers parked on the road and we all got out and started walking to the building. The cops looked baffled I doubt they were expecting actually to see a building when we got here. The cops radioed the other officers to let them know what was happening. Another cop car showed up and gave us a ride back to the police station. Once we got there Jonathon and I got back into his car and headed back to his house.

“Hey, Mikayla since the power is still out how about instead of staying at your house tonight we stop by to get you some clothes and then go back to my house? With the power being out there’s no telling what type of people are going to be prowling the streets tonight.” Jonathon sounded concerned and I didn’t want him to worry about it.

“Okay Jonathon I’ll stay with you tonight,” It was getting dark out so the idea of staying with someone else didn’t sound too terrible.

We made it to my house and quickly grabbed some clothes for tomorrow and left. Jonathon offered to sleep on the couch and let me sleep in the bed, but it was his home and I didn’t want to do that to him. We made a compromise we would both sleep in the bed but put pillows in between us so we wouldn’t accidentally get in each other's bubbles. We fell asleep and in the morning when we woke up the power was back on. The power outage was all over the news but no one seemed to really care we were all just happy the power was back and we could go back to our normal day-to-day lives.