Tabula Rasa

Blank Space Adventure (Serial Story) — Chapter 3

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Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Chapter 3: Learning Secrets on a Mountain 

The car-sized luminescent bats didn’t seem interested in us at all; instead they swooped by us and started grabbing wargs that were hiding in the forest. 

We continued to climb up the mountain, doing our best to not attract attention. By the time we reached the top, the bats had left and the sun was rising again. The top was unnaturally flat, about the size of a hockey rink, and dotted with trees that hummed with electricity.

“That’s not good. No no no, not good at all.” The voice surprised me and it took a moment for me to see the woman who was speaking. She was moving quickly and seemed to be building something out of sticks, vines, and rocks.

“What’s not good?” I asked.

She didn’t even look at me as she answered, “Our rotation is speeding up and the sun is getting closer.” She was short and rotund, with skin that was the colour of cream limestone with dark brown marbling, like she was made of the stone itself. Her hair was granite grey and her eyes were pure gold. She wore the same uniform as we did with an S on it.

“How is that possible? Shouldn’t we be feeling a change in temperature?” W asked, pushing her curly brown hair behind her ears.

“You’re right. Something is wrong. None of this makes sense. Who are all of you?” S asked.

“We have no idea. Do you have any memories of before waking up in this place?” T asked, his voice tense.

Still putting together her device, S replied with, “Nope.”

I was the first to realize what she was building. “Why are you making a trebuchet?”

“I think the sky is fake.”

T scoffed and said, “You’re planning on shooting the sky?”

“Yup!” She put the final touches on the small siege engine.

“At that size, you could get the same distance with a bow,” T replied. 

She shrugged and replied, “I don’t know how to make a bow or shoot it. It was this or a cannon and I can’t find any saltpeter. Stand back.”

She picked up a large rock, the size of a basketball, and put in the sling of the weapon. Why did I know what basketball was and not where I was from? She shouldn’t have been able to pick it up; I would have assumed T would have trouble with it.

Pulling on the release, the counterweight fell and the whole thing swung. The rock flew into the air and just as it hit the apex of its arc, it hit something invisible and fell straight down.

“It’s a dome,” W said, her mouth open in awe. “Where the hell are we, Everdome?”

“No. That was too close to be one of those domes and it made a noise like metal.” I knew the distance from the ground to the top of a dome in Everdome and knew what Everdome was but not my name or home? That’s when I realized that our memories were selectively wiped to remove anything personal. I knew about Everdome because it wasn’t my place of origin, I knew about basketball and the sound of metal because it wasn’t a hint to who I was. Maybe I could use the lack of knowledge to help paint a picture of myself.

I hadn’t noticed A had left, but he ran toward us through the trees and shouted, “We’re on a space station!”

We followed him through the thick pine-like trees and when we reached a clearing on the other side we were struck by a horrifying site. We were definitely on some sort of space craft. There were four other domes like ours attached with grey metal spokes to a central city of spires that looked like different sized knitting needles tied together by metal wire. The part that sent a cold shiver down my spine was that the closest dome was cracked and parts of the habitat were being sucked out into space. I couldn’t see the other domes well enough to know if they’d met the same fate.

“There aren’t any lights,” A said. “There should be lights in the central spire and at the docking bays.”

T grunted in a concerned way, it almost reminded me of someone, before saying, “The ship must be working on emergency power.”

“Well that explains it, time to panic!” S sat down and I swear she sank a few inches into the stone.

“No panicking yet S. A mentioned docking bays. We need to get to a ship,” W said with the confidence of someone who’s been through a lot of dire situations. 

“That’s all the way across the dome,” A whined, running his hands through his silver hair.

“Then I guess we should get started,” I replied as chipperly as possible.

The trek down the mountain was worse than the trek up. This side was steeper and the sun was setting every hour making it impossible to get used to the light or dark. It also felt like every step weighed different amounts and like I was constantly dizzy.

When we reached the bottom we saw the giant bats swirling around the mountain and hitting into each other. “The artificial gravity is having a hard time dealing with the stations spinning. It’s messing with our balance,“ I said, feeling confident about my deduction.

“Won’t matter in about twenty hours,’ said S. When we all stared at her she sighed and said, “We’re heading toward the sun. Didn’t I mention that earlier?” 

Without speaking, we all moved toward the end of the dome, where the spoke should have an entrance. We reached it quicker than I’d expected considering how far it looked from the mountain and how every few steps we stumbled. 

“Why aren’t I tired?” asked W. “I should be huffing and puffing? Are we in a simulation?”

A replied, “I think it’s the clothes. They are often used by slavers to keep the slaves fed and strong but it takes a toll and can lead to heart attacks or strokes.” He paused with wide eyes and said, “I didn’t know I knew that until you asked.”

That made sense. Something about the whole situation felt familiar and wrong at the same time. It was like having something right on the tip of my tongue.

“We’re on a slaver ship, or station, that’s drifting toward the sun, and no one remembers anything?” T asked, sounding more like he was asking for pushups. 

S nodded and asked, “Is it now time for panic?”

Read Chapter 4 (April 2026)

While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories:

Blank Space Adventure (Serial Story) — Chapter 2

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Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Chapter 2: Experiencing Night and Day

“These things shouldn’t exist,” I said to the Wargs.

“The leaves are pink and the moss is orange,” T said with a hint of a smile. He had his makeshift spear pointed at one of the dog-like creatures.

I slowly reached down for a stick, rock, or twig to defend myself with when T made a loud bellowing noise and moved a little toward one of the Wargs. I swear it laughed at him.

The light changed suddenly. It went from daylight to night in a blink and suddenly the forest was alive with clicking and chirps. 

The wargs howled and ran away.

I turned to T and said, “Anything that scares those things is bad news for us.”

“It… It laughed at me,” T said before adding, “How rude.” He put his spear on his shoulder like a baseball player. “You’re right. Let’s find some shelter.”

There was a large hill or small mountain in the distance and we both decided to head that way, hoping that we wouldn’t encounter anything else.

It was surprisingly easy to see despite the sun having set. When I looked up at the moon, I was so shocked by the quantity of stars I stopped walking.

“Why did you stop?” T said and then followed my gaze. He swore in his language and I didn’t blame him. 

The stars should have been like pinpricks in a canopy; instead I was treated to glorious lights that almost merged together. I wished I could remember why this was making me feel so awestruck. Was this stranger than the night sky where I was from? 

“We should keep moving,” I said, feeling very small and very lost.

The hill turned out to be bigger, and farther than we expected. I glanced up every once in a while and noticed the stars were moving. 

“How long have we been walking?” asked T.

I shrugged and said, “I have no idea. Maybe an hour. Why? Do you need a break?”

He laughed and replied, “No, but either the sky’s broken or it’s already dawn.”

“How can the sky be broken?” I asked and shuddered. Something about that sentence scared me and I hated not knowing why.

The sun rose and we heard a scream. Both of us, without hesitation, ran towards the scream. That told me we were both the type of people who wanted to help, or needed to sate our curiosity. 

I was expecting to find someone being attacked but instead we found two people, in the same mustard yellow prison outfits, writhing on the ground. It was the same thing that had happened to us when we’d tried to access some sort of powers, which meant the two were going to be okay.

The first was a beautiful brunette with pale skin and a W on her shirt. She radiated power and my instincts told me that she was dangerous. I didn’t want to startle her even if she couldn’t access her power yet.

The second was a white man with silver hair and an A on his shirt. He felt powerful, but in a completely different way. As he lay on the ground, I saw tiny sparks of electricity shooting from his body.

When the two stopped flopping around, T demanded, “Who are you?”

“I have no clue and I really hate that,” said the woman. 

“I woke up with no memory,” said the man. “I started walking through the forest. I figured I could see better from the top of the mountain. Then I walked into her and we both fell to the ground.”

I offered the woman my hand and she gave me an annoyed glance before saying, “If me touching him caused us to fall to the ground, why would it be different for you?”

Shrugging, I said, “Can’t know if we don’t try.”

She took my hand and the same pain as when T and I had tried to use our powers wracked my body. This time I stayed standing. The pain wasn’t as overwhelming as the first time.

When I opened my eyes the woman was staring at me like I was a puzzle she could put together. “Did you know that it would be easier the second time?”

“No, but knowledge requires repetition.”

She stood up and the four of us sized each other up, trying to find some sort of answers. The woman was the first to speak. “I think A’s idea of going up the mountain for a better view is a good idea.”

“What, just because we all have memory loss and matching outfits, you think we should travel together?” T said.

The woman stood tall and said, “Yes. We’ll live longer together than apart.”

“Dude, she’s got a point,” added A as he dusted the dirt off his pants.

T waited for me and when I nodded, sighed and said, “Sure, why not.”

“Dude! You’re a suspicious little man,” A laughed and followed W, who’d already started walking up the mountain.

“Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you,” mumbled T as he joined the group. 

I followed behind and was hit with a sense of dread. Something, beyond the weird world and lack of memory, wasn’t right.

The feeling didn’t go away but also didn’t get any stronger. I wondered if I was an anxious person or if I had some sort of magical danger radar.

As we climbed, the light changed again, and W asked, “I feel like we’ve been climbing for hours. Why aren’t I hungry or thirsty?” 

It was a good question, but we didn’t get a chance to think about it before we heard the sound of wings. From above came a cloud of luminescent bats. They quickly got bigger and bigger until it was obvious that they were larger than we were and there were hundreds of them.

Read Chapter 3

While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories:

New Serial Story

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Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;

Friday, we debuted my new serial story, Blank Space Adventure. It’s a type of story that I’ve been wanting to tell for a long time but hadn’t found a place for it yet. It’s partially inspired by the beginning of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, Dark Matter, and The Hollow.

Waking up in a strange forest with no memories, M needs to find others who are like her. Nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted in this science-fiction/fantasy adventure. Firmly set in the Aetherverse built by Jen and Éric Desmarais, this story will keep you guessing while introducing a new threat.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Hope you like it!

Éric

Blank Space Adventure (Serial Story) — Chapter 1

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Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Chapter 1: Lost in the Jungle

The sun shone through pink leaves. I wondered where I was. Looking at my dark brown hands and hideous mustard yellow shirt and pants, I wondered who I was.

I was wearing no jewelry and had no tattoos that I could see.

There was something strange about the sun. Its light felt filtered. I could feel its warmth on my bare head but it felt muted. Despite that, the temperature was comfortable and the orange moss felt soft under my naked feet.

I felt like I was heading somewhere and I had to do something important, but I couldn’t remember.

A bird made a horrific shriek at a distance and I almost jumped out of my skin.

I felt my face and body, deciding I was definitely human or close enough to pass. That was an interesting thought, and it meant being not human was an option. I was definitely shaped like a woman, from the feel of my face and lack of pain in my joints, I assumed I was somewhere in my late twenties.

“Okay, look around. Figure out where you are, and find a village or town,” I whispered. Somehow saying it aloud made me feel more real. My voice was deep and feminine. 

I was in a forest and seemed to have been walking on a path made of cushiony moss. The forest was painted in hues of pastel pink, blue, and violet. It could have been normal, but something deep inside me said that trees were not meant to be that colour.

If I’d been heading in the direction I was facing, I was going toward something or away from something; either way it made sense to keep moving. 

The sky was white; that was unnerving. “If white is wrong, what colour is right?” I wondered out loud.

A large winged insect flew by me and my skin crawled. It was the size of my fist with a nasty-looking barb on its posterior.

The moss changed to something firmer, maybe some sort of wood. It was definitely something organic but artificially shaped. The bird shrieked again,  sounding closer.

The forest was cleared in a perfect circle around one tree. This tree had a hard bark of royal blue and it was at least twice as tall as the rest of the forest.

As I got closer to the tree, I heard the telltale hum of electricity. I reached out toward the tree, and my hand was batted down forcefully by a large stick.

“Who are you?” demanded a lithe man with golden brown skin and a close-cropped haircut. My mind told me he must be military.

“Good question. I don’t know,” I replied, noticing he’d sharpened the end into a spear. He’d even carved it a little off centre so that the pointy part wasn’t made of the softer core of the branch. 

I wonder what it says about me that I didn’t think to arm myself but could recognize the technique he’d used? 

“Why don’t you know?” the man asked. It was a question but he sounded unsure.

“Probably the same reason you don’t,” I answered and pointed at the tree. “That’s not a regular tree.”

“You’re right, there’s some sort of computer inside it. It seems biological. I didn’t know that was possible. He lowered the spear and gently caressed the tree. “Why do you have a large M on your shirt?”

I looked down and saw he was right: in the center of the shirt was a large M. His shirt had a large T. “I don’t know. How do you know about the computer in the tree?”

The man put both hands on the tree and my vision swam. When it cleared, I could see a swirl of pink energy around him. He reached out and pushed the energy toward the tree.

Pain flared into my head. Electric shocks made my body convulse and I fell to the hard ground.

When it stopped, I saw that the man, who I was thinking of as T, was on the ground as well.

He sat up and grunted. I let my head stop swimming before doing the same.

“What the hell was that?” he asked, but it was a general ask, not a demand to me.

“I think we tried to use some sort of ability and were shocked into submission.”

He looked at me and then at our matching outfits before swearing in what I recognized as Sámi but wasn’t sure of which language exactly it was. I was surprised to realize that I understood him. “We’re prisoners,” he said finally. 

It made complete sense. We had matching outfits that were obviously made for ease of wash not fashion, we had some sort of trigger device that shocked us… But why take our memory? “Where are our jailers?”

He looked angry for a moment, like he thought I was challenging him, but then he looked around nervously. “If they aren’t visible and they let me make a weapon, they must be watching from hidden cameras.”

“Or they are gone for the same reason we can’t remember who we are?”

That idea was frightening. Being stuck in a jail without jailers meant that unless we could escape, we’d eventually run out of food.

Thinking of food, my stomach growled. Nothing around me looked edible and there was nothing in my pocket.

“Where do we get food?” I asked him.

Again I heard the strange bird, much closer this time, and he must have also, because he said, “Where there are animals, there’s game.”

The bird made another horrifying screech, which was echoed by two others behind us. 

Suddenly, we were surrounded by three massive dog-like creatures. My mind supplied ‘Warg’ but that wasn’t possible, because they were fictional. At least that’s what my mind was telling me.

Fictional or not, they were approaching us, and they looked hungrier than I felt.

Read Chapter 2

While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories: