Blank

“Dammit!”

My necklace clasp snaps between my fingers. I stop in the middle of my apartment complex’s hallway, which I was just previously sprinting down in hopes of slowing down the passage of time. I bring the necklace up close to my face to assess the damage. Definitely broken.

I’ve always hated the stupid thing – it’s cheap and cheesy. A perfectly on-brand gift from my mother. When she had given me the necklace on my birthday the previous year I had smiled big and made a mental note to never be seen leaving the house with the appalling contraption wrapped around my neck.

Yet here I am. I still hate it, really, I do. I just don’t have much else to hold onto from before. My mom is all I have. Growing up it was just she and I. She was a single mother after my dad died when I was nine years old. We don’t have much extended family, and the few members we do have we would only see every couple of years. So really, it feels like it’s always just been us. “Raela and mommy against the world,” as she would always say.

I let out a groan and ignore the faint urge to cry. I debate running back to my apartment and dropping it off, but decide against it. I’m already halfway down the hall and I’m running severely late for my shift. Not that they would do anything if I showed up a minute later, they need all the help they can get. I suppose it’s just the principle. Even if things have gone to hell I can still pretend like some things are still normal. For instance, my habit of never being on time and frantically rushing in everything I do.

Given the circumstances, I decide to go with my next best option. Ted. I travel the few extra steps between my unfortunate friend and me. He’s still in the same place he always is, right in front of 402 and about 7 paces from the elevator doors. Classic Ted.

“Hey man, watch over this for me, will ya?” I am met with no response and a vacant stare. Satisfied with the response, I drop the heart-shaped locket into Ted’s outstretched hand.

Now that that’s been handled, I finish making my way to the elevator. I press the button and wait for the lift’s arrival. I turn back and study Ted for a moment as if there might be any change or movement from where I left him just a second ago. Of course, there is not. There never is. He’s one of them.

Blank. Blanked out. Blank-a-doodle-doo. Whatever the hell you want to call it.

Honestly, I don’t know a thing about this guy. Except for the fact that he is now eternally stuck in the middle of my hallway. Also, that his name isn’t actually (most probably) Ted. I just like to call him that. He has a Ted kind of look to him. He’s dressed in a white tee, a flannel, and jeans, and he has your average-Joe kind of look to him. He probably enjoys grilling on the patio with the boys and thinks taxes are fun. The thought makes me snort.

The poor guy looks like he got zapped out in the middle of an argument. His face is frozen in frustration, one hand holding a phone to his ear, the other outstretched as if to say, ‘Are you kidding me?’ That blessed hand has come in handy (Hah!) more times than I would like to admit. Ted and I have come to an arrangement of sorts where he holds things for me when I am running late, need help with groceries, etc. and I acknowledge his existence. It’s truly a beautiful relationship.

The elevator dings signaling its arrival. The doors open and I squeeze in between Brad and Janet, the Elevator guardians, as I like to regard them. I suppose you could say this is my twisted way of coping with it all. Can you really blame me, though? Frankly, standing in an elevator next to two brain-dead zombies is eerie as hell. Might as well feed the Rocky Horror fan in me and sing the Time Warp for the journey. That way I can almost pretend everything is fine when everything is obviously not fine.

It’s been about six months since the Blackout. It happened on March 6th around 11:16 pm. Life was going on as normal until it simply wasn’t. No rhyme or reason to it. No one knows why, or what could have possibly caused it, but suddenly half the earth’s population just blanked. That’s what they’ve been calling it, anyway. The way I see it, a bunch of people fell asleep and didn’t wake back up again. They just stopped, completely frozen in time, kind of like if you were watching a movie and pressed the pause button. It didn’t matter who they were, what they were doing, or where they were. Somehow amidst all this mess, the Blackout managed to not discriminate. Real thoughtful.

After it happened the world pretty much fell apart. Metaphorically and literally speaking. The first few weeks were an absolute disaster. All systems had completely shut down. We’re talking transportation, communications, water, electricity, etc. It was complete chaos. Basically just your typical grab bag of public pandemonium: crime, violence, and pure mass outrage. Clearly, it was nothing but fun, laughs, and good times for the majority of us, note the sarcasm. If I’m being honest, though, it’s a miracle I made it through those first few months.

About 3 weeks in, we somehow got communications back up and the government did the best they could to salvage the damage. Really it was just a bunch of BS ‘We have few answers in these unprecedented times blah blah…We’re doing everything we can to keep the people safe yada yada…’ and it came with a fancy new set of rules as the big screw you cherry on top. As if they could just somehow force their way back into control by telling us what to do. Some people listened, most didn’t. I’m not sure what they expected. People are scared out of their minds and the government has lost half of its manpower. Good luck with that one, pals.

While most communication lines have opened up, transportation on the other hand has yet to find itself back up and running. At this point, it seems pretty impossible. Here’s the thing, when people blank they don’t just stay in the exact position they were in when the Blackout happened. They don’t move at all. They can’t. It’s like they’ve turned to stone and are completely melded into the exact time and space where they left off.

It’s quite possibly the most outstanding part of this whole phenomenon. There are cars still stuck in traffic, planes in mid-flight, boats at a standstill as waves crash against them. All exactly as they once were with their now frozen passengers in tow.

The government has tried just about everything they can to move the blanks with no result. I’ve even heard rumors that in some areas they’ve experimented with explosives, and somehow everything the blanks were in contact with remained completely untouched. For obvious ethical reasons, aka we have no idea if these people may one day suddenly come back to life, these claims have been adamantly denied. At this point, however, I wouldn’t be all that surprised.

Authorities have cracked down on curfews, started verifying identification cards at every given moment, and placed strict regulations on travel. No one passes borders unless they have permission. They say it’s to help keep record of the ones who are blanked and the ones who are not, but my gut tells me there are other things going on. Suspicions aside, however, it’s been an absolute nightmare. I would never admit it aloud, but I’ve been trying to plan a way to safely leave the state. The problem is that once I do that, I then also need to somehow find a way across the rest of the damn country. Which is some seriously risky business with all these new systems in place. Once I get a plan in action, though, it will all be worth it. I’ll finally get back home. I’ll finally know if…

No. Don’t go there, Raela.

Once they got the phone lines up and running, I called her. My mom. Once, twice, and then a few billion times more. It went straight to voicemail every time. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t send me into a spiral for a while there. My mind went in every possible direction. Maybe she blanked. Maybe she got hurt or even worse, killed, in the dark days after the blackout. Maybe she just lost her phone or the servers back home aren’t up yet. And on and on and on until I was made myself sick. These days I try my best not to think about the what-ifs and maybes. I just focus on one thing – finding a way out of here.

For the last month or so I have just been holding onto hope that the government would start to give us back some freedom in travel, but in fact, it’s been the exact opposite. They’re cracking down twice as hard. People who get caught trying to leave, come back beaten and mangled, sometimes past the point of recognition. They are not kind to those who don’t follow the rules. I could say that’s what I’m worried about, but the truth is I’m more scared of what I’ll find if I do somehow make it out alive.

I let out a sigh. That’s enough introspection for the day, back to reality. I’ve already made my way out of the elevator and am about to pass through the front doors when I realize I forgot my ID card. Shit.

I race back to the elevator, give my regards to Brad and Janet, and press button number 4. As we make our way up, the thought occurs to me that it is a bit of a miracle the elevator even moves with the blanks aboard. A car with a blankie in it won’t move, but an elevator will? The rules of this new reality make little sense to me. Science must be losing its mind with all these new laws of physics. Something about the thought of science itself being a person and somehow trying to make sense of all this makes me chuckle.

Ding.

The doors open on my floor and I begin my sprint down to my unit when I suddenly stop dead in my tracks. Everything is wrong.

No, no, no, that’s impossible.

I rub my eyes and open them again thinking maybe I just didn’t see clearly. When I open them the scene remains the same. All I see is an empty hallway and a very clear opening right in front of room 402.

Ted is gone.

My mind is running through all the possible explanations for what is going on. This cannot be happening. There is no way. Blanks don’t just move. Unless… No, not possible! But there is no denying the fact that what was once there no longer is.

Think, Raela. Think!

I’m not sure how long I stand there in complete shock, but when I manage to collect myself I only have two thoughts running through my head:

1. If someway, somehow, he managed to wake up, then that might mean the others can too.

2. That motherfucker still has my necklace.

I’m going to find him.