Ebony is a shy and quiet girl. She is introverted and enjoys her own company. She regularly goes on social media, posts a lot of photos of herself there and has lots of online friends. Ebony struggles to make friends and socialise with people in person, due to her shyness. She preferred her online friends and making friends on social media.
One day, Ebony received a Facebook friend request from a guy named Shane Collins. She viewed his profile picture and thought he looked handsome so accepted him. So, Ebony was looking through his profile and soon developed a crush on him.
Ebony then posted a picture of herself ice skating onto Facebook and she was really excited, because Shane liked and commented that she is pretty and is a good ice skater. That motivated Ebony to post more of herself. That included a picture of herself drinking lemonade, playing with her pet rabbit and baked rabbit-shaped cookies. Shane liked all these pictures and told her how he loves rabbits too.
Day after day, Ebony has been messaging Shane. Shane kept telling her how pretty she is and wants her to be his girlfriend which made Ebony blush and feel overjoyed. She then said she wants him to be her boyfriend too. Ebony kept on sending pictures of herself to Shane, including ones with short crop tops. Shane then mentioned that he will buy a crop top just for her with bunny rabbits on if they meet tomorrow afterschool where she squealed with joy and immediately told him which school she is at and will bake rabbit-shaped cookies in exchange of the top.
The next day during the end of school at 4pm, Ebony waited by the school gates. But, she could not see anyone. Half an hour later, Shane was not around. She began to worry as she baked those cookies for him last night.
"Ebony," a voice called her. Ebony turned round, it was her teacher, Miss Williams.
"Is everything alright?" Miss Williams questioned with concern.
"Mm hmm." Ebony nodded hesitantly, "things are okay."
"Are you sure?" Miss Williams asked, "aren't you going to go home?"
"Well, I am waiting to meet this really cool, handsome, young guy. His name is Shane Collins. We met on Facebook days ago and we were messaging every day since befriending each other. He's so handsome and he even wants to be my girlfriend and will give me a crop top with bunny rabbits so I baked these rabbit--shaped cookies for him. He should be here some time soon." Ebony replied excitingly. "I even told him everything about myself and..."
"Ebony," Miss Williams interrupted suspiciously, "you said you met this guy on Facebook? I know you really like him, but he may not be who you think. It could all be a trick. It could be someone completely different pretending to be that guy as people nowadays are tricky and could expose you into such danger."
"But I was okay, Miss Williams. It was nothing dangerous..." Ebony said.
Suddenly, at that moment, there was a creepy, drunk middle-aged looking man wearing a red shirt and black trousers that kept toppling over moving towards Ebony.
"HEY!" The man shouted with a creepy voice, "now come here you pretty girl and have sex or I will grab my gun a shoot you!"
"Oh no!" Ebony screamed gaspingly, "it was a trick after all! I should have thought that, Miss Williams help me!"
After hearing all the screaming, Miss Williams called the police about that bloke and he was finally arrested for his crime.
"You were right, Miss Williams." Ebony smiled, "thank you for rescuing me. Next time I should be careful what I post and not to trust people too easily."
"No problem, Ebony." Miss Williams responded, "as long as you are safe, I am happy. Now I will give you a lift home. "
Ebony then gave her cookies to Miss Williams on what she did to save Ebony from the cyber danger and learnt that people may not be who she thinks and it can be very dangerous to tell personal information to strangers online.
Moral 1: People may not be who you think
Moral 2: Never leak out any personal information to strangers especially if they are online