How to fix my mac after erasing the hard drive?

So I decided earlier today that I wanted to reset my Macbook Air (2011 I think) to factory settings. Being me, I didn't do enough research and ended up erasing my hard drive in Disk Utility. I'm not entirely tech savvy, but I erased the hard drive in which Macintosh HD was a partition of. Now, whenever I turn on my computer, there's just a blank screen with a blinking folder with a question mark on it. My mac won't go into recovery mode or anything. Do I have to go out and buy a new OS X disc?

Did your Mac come with a USB stick with the original OS X on it? If so, you could use that.
Check out this page for help on Recovery. OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support
Also, if you bought it from an Apple store, best call them for help.
Presumably, you do not have a bootable backup.

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