No. 3 — The Secrets We Cannot Erase
- Miriam Tocino
- Jul 7
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 4
Privacy means choosing what stays just ours: to share is a choice, not a rule.
Sometimes we share things without even noticing.
A name.
An age.
A favorite game.
A tiny detail we didn’t mean to say.
Click by click, bit by bit, pieces of us float out into the world.
But what if we paused before we shared? What if privacy wasn’t about hiding… but about choosing what we keep and what we give?
This story is about that.
About curiosity, trust, and learning how to press pause when something doesn’t feel right.
A story with a nosy robot, a building full of secrets, and screens that spill more than they should.
Because in the end, privacy isn’t about walls. It’s about having a door and the right to close it.
The Secrets We Cannot Erase
Zerus and Ona were trying out a new game. It was called “The Cloud Castle.” A super cool name, sure, but it definitely sounded like it was hiding something…
The castle had fifty floors, and to climb, you had to answer one question per floor. All under the guidance of a robot that seemed friendly… but only because it had barely passed an online empathy course.
“Shall we go up?” Zerus asked, pulling up his pockets. He said it brought him luck.
“Only if there are no weird questions,” said Ona, suspicious.
The first ones were easy:
Favorite color? Favorite food? Fly or be invisible?
Zerus answered like he was casting spells. Ona answered like someone with detailed charts, neatly labeled and stored in folders.
They climbed floor by floor. Everything was going fine… until floor thirteen.
“What are you afraid of?” the robot asked.
Ona brushed her antennae. It was her trick for buying time.
“Water,” she finally answered.
“A lot?” the robot pressed, curious (he had learned that in Module 2 of his online course).
“Yes. A lot.”
The door opened and they climbed to floor fourteen. As if nothing had happened. They kept playing. Jumping. Laughing. Until floor thirty-seven.
Suddenly, the castle shook. Every screen lit up at once:
“ONA IS AFRAID OF WATER”
“ONA IS VERY AFRAID OF WATER”
Ona’s fear was everywhere. Like those ads that follow you around the internet.
She froze, staring at her secret shining on every screen. Then ran off without saying a bit. She needed space to think. Zerus watched her go. And had an idea. He went back to floor thirteen.
“What are you afraid of?” the robot asked.
“The dark,” Zerus said.
“A lot.”
Back on floor thirty-seven, he shouted:
“Ona! Look at this.”
Next to Ona’s fear, Zerus’s fear appeared too.
“Now I know how you feel,” he said.
Ona took a deep breath and smiled softly. Her friend was so cool. Like, a full tera of cool.
“Our secrets won’t disappear with an undo button,” Zerus said.
“But we can give feedback, so it doesn’t happen to others.”
“I love giving feedback!” said Ona, expert in constructive opinions.
And together, they shouted:
“Dear Cloud Castle! Next time, warn us before sharing our secrets! With BIG signs. And LIGHTS! Like system updates!”
OUR DATA IS NOT A TOY.
Big Questions for Small Thinkers
What would happen if an online game shared one of your secrets without asking? How would you feel? What would you do?
Are there things you only trust certain people with? Why them — and not others?
If you could invent a magical rule to protect your secrets, what would it be? Who would be allowed to access them?
