I clicked one of those spam pop-ups as a kid

It took me longer than the other kids to grow out of cartoons. I loved all those childhood classics that were featured on Cartoon Network, Nickolodeon and such. It's funny, if you go on any nostalgic blogs nowadays you'll see people acting like they always loved cartoons, but I bet there was a time they denounced their love just to seem 'cool'.

Anyway this carried over when I was in my early years of high school and bored in IT class. Everyone was just doodling away on paint, playing flash games, or reading random pages found on the web. We had one of those teachers that never really cared about what we did as long as the work was done.

My favourite cartoon at the time that I was binging was 'Batman: The Animated Series'. Out of boredom I was just searching away random things on search engines. First I typed in 'Batman: The Animated Series trivia' which came up with a plethora of random facts about the show. I then found some little interviews about the 'behind the scenes' and 'making of' which was pretty interesting. After hearing the same facts over and over though, I changed things up a bit. I decided to search for fan sites to see what others thought of the show. First I found some popular blogs sharing fan fictions and theories. I even found a few hate pages which peeved me. But alas, I eventually fell into a monotonous grind through the pages of search results.

I eventually hit the double digit figure of search pages, which is when you find the more bizarre and less relevant pages. I came across some role-play forums, illegal streaming sites of the show and even a fanatic who acted out episodes in costume. I was just mindlessly clicking through these until I hit a generic, albeit amateur looking fan page. It had a generic spiel about how they loved the show, and there were pages of commentary written down on an episode by episode basis. I was curious, but as I was getting into things a pop-up came up.

“You have been selected for a chance to win £100,000”.

Obviously I had been warned by my parents to be cautious about things that are too good to be true. But I was also at that age where I felt I was destined for something special; and this could be it. I hesitantly clicked on it, and it lead to a little questionnaire, one question at a time. First it asked a generic question about Batman. Luckily I had just been reading all the hidden details of the show and proudly clicked the right answer in the drop-down.

“Correct!” it congratulated me with. This gave me a great feeling and a small shot of adrenaline. 'This could be it. I could be rich in a matter of seconds,' was the thought racing in my mind.

This all left me on the next question.

“What is your name?”

I was hesitant now. I was especially warned to never fill in personal details on the internet. Class was ending soon and I needed to be fast. If I answered, I could get in trouble, and if I left it, this opportunity would slip me by. In a panic I looked around my class for inspiration, and my eyes met with the people in my class. Then I came up with the genius idea- 'I could use someone else's name!'.

First I looked at my best friend. If all this turned out to be legitimate, he would definitely understand and share the wealth with me. However if he got in trouble I would feel like I betrayed him. I was scared to ask him as I didn't want him to laugh at me in case this was all fake. Next I turned to the big kid at the back of the class. Pete was basically the school bully. I thought if things went sour, I wouldn't mind him taking the fall. He'd gotten away with so much in this school that anything bad happening to him would be karmic justice. But then I thought of the potential good, and how he wouldn't even think twice about keeping all the money to himself.

Time was running out and I had to act quick. I could see some people packing away their stationary early to leave quickly for the upcoming lunch break. Then the perfect idea hit me: Dexter. He was basically the class nerd. This name didn't help him, leaving him the most cliché nickname- Point Dexter. He was weak willed, easily pushed around. A bad quality to have, but if he got the money, I could easily sway him into being on my side and splitting the pool with me. And if things went sour I could easily deny any connection. I didn't really have much connection with him and I wasn't that type of kid, so no one would suspect me. It was the perfect choice.

I quickly typed in his name, which lead to a box for his address. I had it off hand from his birthday party flyer, which no on showed up to. It would have been social suicide to have shown up. I pulled out the creased flyer from my backpack and hastily filled it in. After that the pop-up just thanked me and closed. It was anti-climatic to say the least. It was just in time though as everyone was flooding out for lunch, and I didn't want to look suspicious. So I closed everything down and left.

Weeks when by and seemingly nothing happened. I didn't want to ask Dexter about it as I didn't want to look stupid that I'd fallen for such a thing, and I didn't want him to know I was filling his details in on random sites. He certainly never acted different in that time, so I figured he hadn't received the money. It was slowly hitting me that I may have been duped.

I was watching him at lunch to see if he brought anything with him that may show that he secretly received a lump of money, but he just pulled out some simple sandwiches and a chocolate bar. One thing I did notice though was that he was acting kind of skittish. He would occasionally pop his head up from eating, look around with wide eyes, and strafe back down to eat some more. I figured he was just looking out for kids who were looking to grief him. He really was a big target for many bullies.

A week or two later and things start getting more noticeable; but not in a good way. His grades started slipping. Now he was known as Point Dexter for a reason. He was so smart he usually knew things the teachers didn't. But now he was noticeably lacking behind.

His behaviour was becoming more erratic too. He would sometimes lash out at other kids if they walked too close to him and caught him off guard. He would start screaming, seemingly at random. This started to distress the other kids, me included, and Dexter had to be sent out every so often to calm him down.

I started to feel like this was my fault. I mean, I put together that this all started after I filled in his details on that pop-up. I nonchalantly brought it up to my mom; the behaviour, not the pop-up, and she gave me an interesting explanation. As lightly as possible, she told me he's a little... special. She explained that he may act odd from time to time because he had mild autism. I later learned that he was diagnosed on the cusp of the spectrum where he could be in school with the regular kids, which is an offer his parents took up. This explanation was easy to stomach, and as bad as this sounds, I rejoiced inside knowing it wasn't my fault.

Time went by and things were getting worse. He would show up to school exhausted and pale, dark circles around his eyes. I no longer felt bad about the pop-up though, I more felt sorry for his parents. I couldn't' imagine what this was like for them. But I just accepted this as how things were.

Eventually his behaviour got so out of hand that he had to be taken out of class regularly. Usually he didn't make it past 10 minutes in class before needing to be sent out. It didn't matter anyway. All he'd do was stare out the window with his crazy wide eyes, until he would start screaming and panicking away. It was too disruptive to be sorted out every time it happened.

It wasn't long until he stopped showing up completely. I asked my parents about it and they were oddly quiet about it. I asked the other kids, but they said they had a similar response from their parents. We were simply constantly told 'not to worry'. A week later, and more inquiries; all the parents, seemingly at the same time, all started telling us that they simply moved Dexter to a special needs school which could accommodate his condition. Some of the other kids didn't believe their parents, but it was spread enough that it was eventually settled as truth.

Now, the reason I'm telling you all this is because of what I found out recently; I found out what really happened. He didn't move. He was kidnapped.

On his bed was a note left in scratched, barely legible writing, saying- “Dexter is a greedy boy. Dexter is a greedy boy. Dexter is a greedy boy.” over and over again.

After he went missing, a silent search operation was conducted around the town to see if they could find him. While searching the industrial estate to see if he was hiding away in an abandoned warehouse they found his body. His body was stuffed with coins and notes recently stolen from a bank. There was also evidence of the worst things imaginable having happened to him, but you don't need me to describe them to you.

It was decided to be kept from the kids to stop fear-mongering and trauma. Plus telling the kids wouldn't have made us more safer anyway. This wasn't a random kidnapping, there was plenty of evidence that it was premeditated, planned, and was a one off. However no evidence could be found of a motive.

Except for what I know.