4

My laptop, which might as well be a relic from the Jurassic Period, had the audacity to serenade me with Memories by Maroon 5. And then, it blamed me. Game's game, player's player. If something shady went down, apparently it's my fault too. Classic! It's like the scenario your typical old-school traditionalists would insist on: "Blame the victim, no questions asked." Sure, why not?

So, I was on a mission to find my wireless mouse, which had somehow migrated under my bed like a tiny rodent seeking shelter. I yanked out the drawer... and lo and behold, there it was! My notebook, the notebook, where I had written my life's greatest takeaways. The same notebook that had once made me question my existence but also saved my grade. Without it, I'd probably be destined for eternal academic failure. So yeah, life's a wild ride.

I plugged the tiny USB into my grandpa's laptop (which is actually mine, but we won't get into that family drama) and began to wander the web like a clueless Dora the Explorer, if Dora's parents had a lawsuit pending for child endangerment, of course.

The website I landed on? Oh, it was basic. No fancy frills or elegance. Just a straightforward educational portal that screamed "I'm not trying, and I'm okay with that." A couple of logos slapped in the corner, a dark rosewood-colored border (real classy), and the font of Lora. Who designed this? Someone who thinks "minimalism" means "just barely trying."

Then, I noticed something... odd. There, in the corner of my screen, was a tiny blinking dot. Just blinking away like it had all the time in the world. As children of Eva, seduced by anything that dares to blink, I couldn't resist. I started clicking it with the fury of a toddler on a sugar high.

Nothing happened. Of course, it didn't. Why would it?

But deep down, I knew—it was just a design element, probably. But my curiosity? Insatiable. It was like watching a trainwreck I was sure wouldn't happen... except it probably would. So, yeah, there I was, clicking like a madman, waiting for something to... anything to happen.

I continued being Dora, clicking here and there, looking at each navigation and reading them as well. More like it's a private site for the highest position in the tech company where this trash I'm currently using came from.

The graph shows how much money this technology receives a day, even in a week. No wonder that the statistics decline when it comes to student performance, perhaps due to the emerging AI that people think it's helpful, when it's actually not.

You know what I mean? Chat*pt is like the last line of survival of the students before, but now that as soon they got their activity or homework, they will go straight to our Father, Chat*pt.

The screen blinked again, this time with an even more alarming message:

[Command Executed: Internal Data Purge Initiated. This may take a few minutes…]

My mouth fell open. What internal data? Was this still part of the "Test Your Skills" thing? And then it hit me. This wasn't just any random site. This was part of the tech company that had dumped this laptop in the first place. The interface, the logo, the file names… it all clicked. Or, more accurately, I had clicked on it.

"Shit," I whispered, leaning back in disbelief. The realization hit like a bucket of ice water. I think I've just woken up a buried dragon inside this dumpster fire of a laptop…

The progress bar crawled forward, but my panicked brain was in overdrive. How was this even possible? Did the company seriously forget to wipe its internal files before tossing this thing into the second-hand market? My heart pounded as the bar inched closer to completion.

I frantically tried pressing Esc, Alt+F4, Ctrl+Z… anything to stop the purge. But this wasn't some petty Word document. It was the entire infrastructure of a multi-billion-dollar company's backend system.

The laptop let out a final, almost triumphant beep, and the screen displayed one last, cheerful message:

[All files successfully deleted. Goodbye.]

I sat frozen, my hands hovering above the keyboard. The room was silent, save for the faint sound of my ceiling fan, mocking me with its calm rotation. What… just happened? Did I—no, could I—have just deleted… everything?

I grabbed my phone, frantically Googling the company's name. But instead of the usual flashy corporate homepage, I was met with a message that read:

[Error 404: Site Not Found.]

My brain short-circuited. I hadn't just killed a site. I'd killed the site. The very heart and soul of this tech giant was now gone, wiped clean because some genius forgot to delete a hidden access link on a laptop they'd sold second-hand.

I slumped back into my bed, staring at my blank laptop screen. Congratulations! I thought sarcastically. You just destroyed a company's entire digital presence with the grace of a toddler smashing a piñata.

And then, the worst part hit me. This wasn't going to end here. Someone, somewhere, was going to notice. And when they did? They wouldn't see me as the clueless idiot who stumbled into this mess. They'd see me as some criminal mastermind hell-bent on taking down the tech world one second-hand laptop at a time.

I glanced nervously at the laptop, now eerily silent. The damn thing had betrayed me, but I couldn't even be mad… it had just helped me accidentally commit corporate sabotage. I didn't know whether to cry, laugh, or start preparing my "it was all an accident" defense.