It was a humid Tuesday afternoon when Aaron, a young man in his twenties, found himself slouched on his tiny couch, mindlessly swiping through the cracked screen of his old Android phone. The device, once a marvel of its time, now ran slower than the second hand on his wall clock. With nothing better to do, he tapped into his browser, half-expecting it to freeze.
Multiple old tabs were still open — the kind that had been there for weeks: a half-read Reddit thread, a half-watched YouTube video, and then, something odd — a site about blockchain and cryptocurrency.
"Crypto?" he murmured, furrowing his brows. He never really cared for it. Too much jargon, too many graphs. But today, out of boredom or fate, he tapped on it.
The page loaded slowly, revealing a colorful interface, flashy tokens, and an automated wallet connected to his old financial app — a relic from a failed investing experiment years ago. As he scrolled through the site, numbers flickered, coins danced, and a button blinked: "Invest Now."
He tapped it.
A form popped up. A slider. Somehow, it auto-filled.
"$10,000?"
He blinked. His thumb hovered over the "Confirm" button.
Then it tapped.
Aaron's heart stopped for a moment. The screen froze — then buzzed.
Transaction Complete.
He sat there in silence.
"What... did I just do?"
The blood drained from his face. He scrambled to check his bank balance. The old app lagged, the wheel spun, and finally—
Balance: $23.56
Aaron stared at the screen in disbelief. A sick feeling curled in his stomach. He scrolled back to the token page, hoping it was all a glitch, a dream, anything. But there it was — his shiny new crypto wallet, displaying a wildly fluctuating number of tokens.
He watched as the value dipped by 6%... then 12%... then bounced up 4%.
Numbers rising and falling like a roller coaster he never meant to ride.
He let out a shaky laugh, not sure if it was from horror or hysteria.
And as the setting sun cast a golden hue across his apartment, Aaron sat frozen, still staring at his phone, wondering if his accidental dive into the blockchain world was a curse... or maybe, just maybe, a blessing in digital disguise.