It was late at night, around 1 am, in the eerily silent air-conditioned confines of my single-bedded room, juxtaposed by the continuous playlist of songs I saved on my phone currently plugged into a charger. I was putting the finishing touches on my Art project, a painting of anything we wanted. It wasn’t too much, just a portrait of me and my friends together like we used to. Used to. Those words hit home as I recall the recent events of widespread social distancing and uncertainty as an unseen force continued to plague anywhere you went. It’s been a year since this all started, and despite an end seemingly in sight, news that a second batch of this disastrous recipe the universe decided to bake up make it hard to believe that this would be the case with every passing day. Sometimes, I wonder when things would go back to normal, when I’d be able to freely go out without fearing age restriction, face masks, and care. I also tend to ponder on why I underestimated those simple things such as outside trips, social interaction, face to face class attendance, and many others that haven’t come to mind at the moment. Maybe it’s because those were things that I didn’t have to worry about as they were of abundance, and things that you never thought wouldn’t be considered as such any time soon. At this point, I was just signing my name and date on the artwork, the song “Need You Now” by Lady Antebellum blasting through my phone speakers, exhausted physically and emotionally all at once. Out of instinct, I clicked on the Messenger app pinned to my home screen, in hopes that I could wash away all the exhaustion I felt even for just a quick minute before settling down. As I scrolled through all my group chats, I found one pretty active; A friend group of mine’s whom I talk to 24/7 with a couple people still online this late, as usual.

“Sup guys”, I typed in.

“Eyyyy, Francineee”, one of my friends, Santino replied. “Why are you still up?”, he asked.

“Just had to finish art.”

“Ooh, can we see?”, another friend, Kat chimed in.

“Sure”, I scrambled for the camera option, clicking the best photo I could take despite the low resolution Messenger had with pictures.

“WOAHHHHHHHH, SANA ALLL”, she replied, along with a heart react on the picture itself.

“Thank you, eheh”

“Wehhh, I can do better than that kaya”, Santino butted in.

“Oh yeah? Prove it then.”

“Sige”, he hesitated for a bit, before posting a picture of himself posing.

“Huh? Why’d you send a picture of yourself?”

“I’m the work of art kasi~”, Santino defended, followed by Kat’s laugh react, and my internal cringe at how corny that statement was.

Nonetheless, the night? No, early morning continued on like this, just us joking around, talking about anything such as how we’ve been doing in school, and over the years, how we plan to meet each other someday, and the tv shows, animes and games we enjoy watching and playing until I lost track of time for a couple more hours than intended in front of my blue-light emitting screen. However, I didn’t care. I was just glad that I got to catch up with my friends after how long I’ve been inactive due to online school, and just let loose for the time being, leaving behind the worries of tomorrow, and the day after that, and the life defining stages of my life nearing with every passing hour. It felt fun and addicting, like a reality I never wanted to escape from, or a dream I never wanted to wake up from. I suddenly felt a yawn and checked the time.

“Oh shoot, it’s 3 am”, but as I sent it, no one replied. Welp. Guess they both went to sleep, and I should probably do the same. I put my phone on my bedside table, wrapped myself in my blanket, and closed my eyes, heavy from the cold air, and strain. I felt a smile spread across my face as everything turned black, and soon colors of every shade and hue started to appear.