The Gold Price Maze

K first noticed the number on the scrolling screen of the commuter subway. A golden yellow number, accompanied by an up or down arrow of the same color, flickered quietly in the crowded, dim carriage. Initially, it was just another fragment in the stream of information, no different from the weather forecast, advertising slogans, or public service announcements. He wasn't even sure what it represented, only vaguely aware it had something to do with the "gold price," a distant and precious metal.

However, the number seemed to have a certain stickiness. The next day, it appeared on the display screen in the office elevator. The number had changed, the arrow pointing downwards, as if carrying a hint of dejection. When he went to the convenience store for a sandwich at noon, the small TV by the cashier was also broadcasting financial news, and that golden number caught his eye again, the arrow jumping upwards fiercely. K felt a strange unease, as if this number was silently seeping into every corner of his life. He didn't own any gold, nor did he care about investments. His salary was just enough to maintain a life that was neither good nor bad, occupying a cubicle in the huge office building like most of his colleagues, processing endless documents that seemed to point towards some grand goal, though what exactly it was, no one could say for sure.

Gradually, K began to actively seek out the number. He downloaded a finance app and placed it in the most prominent position on his phone's home screen. The first thing upon waking was to check the overnight gold price changes; the last glance before sleep inevitably fell on that fluctuating curve. Every tick of the number tugged at his nerves. When it rose, he felt a hollow excitement, as if he himself were elevated along with it; when it fell, he would become inexplicably flustered, as if something important was slipping away. His emotions were firmly tied to this number, which had no connection to his real life, like a puppet manipulated by invisible strings.

He started observing the people around him. Did they notice this number too? The hurrying passersby, the expressionless colleagues, the drowsy passengers on the subway... they all seemed oblivious. But K felt this might just be a facade, a collective indifference. Perhaps deep down, everyone was being gnawed at, driven by this golden number. He even suspected that seemingly unrelated conversations – about prices, about work, about the future – secretly aligned with the underlying logic of the omnipresent gold price fluctuations. The world had become a giant, hidden system revolving around the gold price, and he was the only poor soul who had seen through the truth.

The office lights grew increasingly pale, the characters on the documents began to distort, sometimes resembling flickering K-line charts. The sound of typing from the next cubicle sounded to him like the buzzing of a ticker tape machine in an exchange. Once, in a daze, he thought he saw the wrinkles on his manager's face take on a faint golden sheen. He shook his head violently, trying to dispel the absurd hallucination, but the feeling became more and more real. He felt like a tiny metal particle, adsorbed onto this vast, cold financial machine that glittered with false brilliance, rising and falling, spinning with its rhythm, involuntarily.

He tried to escape this state. He deleted the mobile app, deliberately avoiding screens displaying financial news. But the number had already been internalized. Closing his eyes, he could see it flickering in the darkness; walking down the street, the sunlight reflecting off glass curtain walls transformed into jumping golden numbers in his eyes. He even began trading gold in his dreams, running through endless mazes made of K-line charts, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes terrified, waking up in a cold sweat, heart pounding wildly, feeling even worse than suffering a real loss.

This sense of invisible control suffocated him. He decided to find the source of this number, the mysterious center that issued commands and made the world dance to its tune. He took leave from work and, based on vague impressions and online searches, went to the city's financial district. The towering glass skyscrapers, like giant tombstones, reflected the cold sky. He entered a building that looked the most authoritative, the most central – supposedly some kind of trading center. The lobby was hauntingly empty, only the cold marble floor echoing his footsteps. There was none of the hustle and bustle he had imagined, no yelling traders, only a few uniformed people sitting expressionlessly behind information desks, like meticulously arranged wax figures.

He walked forward, his throat dry, wanting to ask about the gold price, wanting to ask what this was all about. But when he opened his mouth, he found he couldn't make a sound. The person behind the information desk looked up, their gaze empty. K noticed with horror that reflected in the person's pupils were two tiny, clear golden numbers, accompanied by a constantly blinking arrow.

K staggered back, turned, and fled the building. He rushed onto the street, the sunlight blinding. Everything around him seemed to be spinning; every pane of glass, every reflection on a passing car, even the jewelry worn by pedestrians on the roadside, reflected that omnipresent golden number. He understood then. There was no center, no source. The number itself was the maze, an infinite loop constructed jointly by collective consciousness, desire, and fear. It had no entrance and no exit. He wasn't observing it from the outside; he was already inside it, having become a part of its very fabric.

He stopped, standing amidst the crowd, looked up, and stared blankly at the sky. The sky was grey and overcast, like a huge, unpolished block of lead. He felt an unprecedented exhaustion, not physical, but a depletion deep within his soul. He took out his phone, his fingers trembling, and re-downloaded the finance app. When that familiar golden yellow number lit up again, K let out a long breath. A strange sense of calm enveloped him. Since escape was impossible, then become it. He silently watched the number, watched its tiny fluctuations, as if reading an endless epic that only he could understand. He no longer tried to comprehend, no longer tried to resist, just watched quietly, letting himself be swept away by this golden torrent towards an unknown abyss. The pedestrians on the street continued to hurry along, no one noticing him, just as no one noticed the ubiquitous, yet empty, gold price.