I have a rule about not clicking on ads, pop-ups, banners, hotlinks to unknown websites... or anything anyone else directly links me, really. It's really the human component that matters- even "safe" links from people I nominally trust could wind up having a nearly invisible typo that happens to drop me on a honeypot designed to collect a target's IP and automatically flood them with traffic. Then I'd have to spend hours fighting random intrusions from curious pests, and then when I call my service provider to try and get a new static IP it turns out they've had some critical system error, and then I'd have to redo my entire network setup, and on, and on...

Static ad campaigns tend to be safer, there's less chance of interference from other human beings when some uncaring media giant slaps their ads on the reel and forgets about them, but it pays to be cautious when lives could be on the line- especially mine. It sounds dramatic, but I cannot fathom a more realistic consequence to a single slip-up than unwanted human fatalities. It's one of the many reasons I hesitate before I click on this dumb ad, an ad that promises to solve my largest, most life-defining problem.

"GET HAPPY LUCKY - SOLVE BAD LUCK," the ad reads, slapped in a shitty box advert on the side of the webpage. It's a shitty side box advert that I shouldn't even see, that I wouldn't see at all if my ad-blocker worked consistently. Unfortunately, I have to send in bug reports every few weeks to keep it working properly.

Its text is sharp black, scrawled in a big Impact-y font and set on a garish yellow banner; it flashes wildly in that way only a lazily slapped together ".gif" can. The ad is jarring and unprofessional, like something dug out of an internet graveyard from decades past. A quick hover over it reveals that the hyperlink embedded into the image would send me to a Blogspot URL, one with "happy-luck" in the name, surrounded by a seemingly random alphanumeric jumble. You might as well write "virus me up, please" instead and leave it at that.

The other reason I hesitate? As described, the ad looks utterly incompetent. This is a level beyond asking if it's a scam- what if this ad is authentic? Even in that case, such a slapshod ad isn't credible at all. What could they possibly offer me that I haven't tried - or that I haven't already dismissed out of hand? Am I going to be sold shiny karma crystals for $10,000, or will I have my identity stolen by some never-before-disclosed browser exploit? Based on past experience I would say "flip a coin," but I already know it'll land on tails, so there's not much point in the affair. This thing is so sketchy that it'd be more reasonable of me to refresh the page, click away, or just plain ignore it and never think about it again, not so much as giving it the time of day.

Yet... I can't help but feel like my caution is getting the better of me. My life has improved a lot in the past year or so, and making that change has been all about taking unprecedented risks - really making my unique problem my bitch, as it were. Am I really going to let this opportunity slide, no matter how highly suspect it is? It's hard to imagine this blog will do anything for my problem, but what if it does? I feel like a teeter-totter of misplaced optimism and hardened skepticism.

In a way, the strangeness of the ad, the terribleness of it, it speaks to me on a fundamental level. It's not like the other ads, ads made for people with taste, or to lull the viewer into a false sense of security. The person who made it has to be aware that it will turn away most people who see it, right? They simply don't care. Unusual. Promising, at least in the sense I might see a new scam rather than some tired old one. Something else to try.

As a result, here I am, sitting in front of an ad, having a minor existential crisis over whether it's healthy to take unnecessary risks because you see some shitty .gif. I'm squinting at a box on a website and making justifications for terrible life choices I haven't even made yet. Whimsy wouldn't be a problem if I were a normal person who had problems on a normal scale, but I'm a ticking time-bomb at risk of actual catastrophe with every roll of the dice. Sure, my life improved by taking some risks, but part of that improvement was figuring out ways to profit from guaranteed bad luck. If I open it, this ad is going to be hurt me somehow, or someone else, I just don't know how yet.

I feel a light headache coming on. Maybe that's what the ad was really meant for, to give me a migraine?

I sigh, lean back in my chair, and blow a raspberry to no-one in particular.

Might as well pitch the idea to my acquaintances and see what they think.

Tabbing through my browser - paying special attention to avoid accidentally closing the page with the strange ad, or refreshing it - I pop open my favorite chat-room. It's a pretty neat place in the sense that I've known some of the chatters for over a year now and none of them have died horribly through mysterious circumstances, or been forced to cut off contact with me. That sets a record of sorts; I think part of the reason I am the odd way that I am is a byproduct of the sheer isolation my condition has forced me into. At any rate, this chat-room run is over a Discord chat, and it has some strange customs that work out excellently for me - and which may be helping to keep misfortune at bay. There's mandatory anonymity, "clean" accounts only with as little private messaging as possible, and you have to adhere to a weird naming scheme - you use your pronoun of choice, followed by an initial. Absolutely no identifying information or inquiry is permitted, even in private, and you should only offer info if it literally can't be tracked to you, no matter what, so on.

"hey"

"What do you want?" - comes the quick reply, from one "Mr. A." who seems to be chained to his screen.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Mr. A is my oldest acquaintance, and the person who invited me to the chat in the first place. He's brusque, erudite, and terminally online. I've had a lot of authentic "acquaintances" over the years, teachers, classmates I didn't particularly like, service workers, and they've usually all turned out fine as long as they are affably distant or very brief encounters. The problem comes out with longer relationships, or when there are people I really like, people I want to talk to. I want to talk to these guys sometimes, but... not too often. That might explain some of the longevity, too.

Between the raw distance of electronic communication and our clashing personalities, I like these strange people enough to chat but not enough to get personal. By some miracle, that also makes them a great resource to go to for advice, and they even know a bit about my situation. Very, very loosely.

I'm Mr. J, for the record.

Mr. J: "look at this screenshot," I sent, attaching a screengrab of the strange ad.

Mr. A: "Don't waste my time."

Mr. J: "I'm serious, what should I do?"

"click it, duh." - came the second opinion. Ms. K was one of the first people I met once I got initiated into the chat. She's lazy, but can be chatty if something she's interested in comes up, and she tends to spend a lot of time trolling. Especially harassing Mr. A, who she has something of a rivalry with.

Mr. A: "We both know he won't do that."

Ms. K: "so he shouldn't?"

Mr. A: "Obviously not. He was whining for an entire week last time he clicked an ad, and that time was on accident."

Ms. K: "so why not just say so the first time, hmmm?"

"What's it link to?" - entered a third. Mr. G is a bit of an enigma. He's a bit goofy - he voluntarily calls himself "the G-man" periodically, which pisses off Mr. A to no end, given it thwarts the rules in a very haphazard way, but despite peppering in random pop culture references and shitty jokes he's also remarkably insightful on certain things, and good at carving away at the edges of ideas. He's only started to pipe up when I drop in my issues more recently, but they're usually good ideas.

I copy the link from the ad - very carefully - to a pastebin on a timer, make sure the bin is unlisted, and link that in chat instead. There's still a slight chance someone could misclick it somehow from the paste itself, but unlike Discord at least there isn't a giant hyperlink waiting for everyone in the entire chat to click it on accident. A layer of detachment does a world of good.

Mr. J: "seems to be some kind of blog, but the URL is suspicious"

Mr. G: "Seems pretty sus to me."

Ms. K: "who let this guy in anyway?"

Mr. A: "It was not me. Are you regretting it yet?"

Mr. G: "You guys are mean."

Ms. K: "well, I don't see a big deal, the blog is almost blank anyway"

I groan and scrunch my eyes shut, rubbing them with my fingertips. Of course she opened it.

Mr A: "Are you certain?"

Ms. K: "yeah seems pretty tame to me, just the basic stuff and the default article like a new blog"

Mr. J: "so should I open it???"

Mr. A: "I would not."

Mr. G: "I'm getting the same thing here, I think it's safe."

Shaking my head, I tab back page with the garish ad. It's still there, and when I hover over it again, the URL hasn't changed. All of this agonizing for an empty blog? I feel

Frustrated, I go to close the webpage, clutching the mouse and dragging... click. I realize with a start that when I let go of the mouse to rub at my face, it got twisted around, and I've just clicked right onto the ad on accident.

Not much I can do about it now.

The damage is almost certainly already done from the network side of things, but I'm too slow to save my browser from whatever exploit is coming.

HAPPY GOOD LUCK! HAPPY LUCK GUIDE TO GROWING YOUR LUCK & MINIMIZING COMPLICATIONS (REAL!)

A terrible website deploys before my very eyes with gold and black scattered everywhere, like a bumblebee made out of poor design choices. The layout is vaguely Blogspot-like, but it doesn't look like any blog that I've ever seen.

In a huff, I switch back to the chat.

Mr. J: "You lied! Take these things seriously!"

Mr. A: "You opened it?"

Mr. J: "I didn't mean to"

Ms. K: "didn't do shit, look here"

Ms. K posts a screen-grab, and... the URL is the exact same, but it looks like any other blog. The only resemblance between the two is a mention of "happy good luck" in the header. I'm tempted to call her out and accuse her of editing it, but Mr. G chimes in right after.

Mr. G: "Same stuff here."

I tab back to the blog and look around, scrolling, but I can't find anything like what they see. I hit inspect element, curious, but when I click through the random - scattered, kind of strange-looking HTML, it seems to correspond best with what I'm seeing on my end. More importantly, there's no sign of code to only deploy the site under certain conditions, or anything of that nature. Nothing at all.

A feeling of unease washes over me, and I hop back to the chat.

Mr. A: "What did you see?"

Mr. J: "I think it's best if no one worries about it. Don't keep that link."

I go back and delete the link I posted to the pastebin, and decide to ignore the chat for a while in general, not sticking around to read the replies. It should be safer for them that way.

I scroll around the blog and click through the dates, reading the titles of random posts, until I see one called

HAPPY STARTER GUIDE - SUPER HAUNTED EDITION KIT TIPS & TRICKS

and when I read that, the sinking feeling settling in my chest graduates to a near heart attack.

Ah, I think to myself, light-headed enough to feint, the fallout for this is going to be so, so much worse than just mere spam, a hacker, or any federal investigation.

This site is... giving me exactly what I need.

I click the link.