The Internet's Shadow.

2:38 am.

It's 2:38 am.

My hands are numb with pain. I can't feel them, nor can I barely move them. My wrists are so sore. I want to lift them but I can't, it's so burdensome. My eyes are so strained, and I can't see anything in my dark bedroom except the bright light emitted by my laptop. But nonetheless, I'm happy.

Still in pain, but I'm happy.

I don't think I've ever been this happy. Besides Yash, I was always alone. But now, I have friends from all over the world. It doesn't matter anymore if people from my school don't want to hang out with me. I don't know how I'm going to write notes today. I hope it goes away soon. I don't want to be dragging my arm across the floor and look like a zombie pretending to be a normal high school student.

I try to get up from my slouching position, and stretch. I hissed as I felt a sharp pain in my lower back, and fall back into my chair. Sitting in one position for an extended period of time, is not a good thing. Noted.

This time, I slowly go to my bed, trying not to hurt myself again from straining any part of my body that is sore.

Lisa has been waking me up every now and then if I fall asleep. I'm really mad about that, because I really want to sleep. But she keeps bugging me about how there are new messages from my friends and new notifications from different social media and at times ,I catch myself yearning to go online even after I've already checked and responded to any notification or message.

'Hey Ilsa?'

Yes Lisa?

'Wake up.'

I groan in frustration. Why? I'm tired, let me sleep.

'But look at your phone, it's literally getting spammed with messages. Go reply them.' I turn my head over to see my phone constantly flickering from the messages I was receiving. I turn my back towards the phone. I'll do it later.

'Do it now, otherwise your friends might leave you. And I know you don't want it.'

I hesitate, I was tired and it was going to be 3 am soon, I really needed my sleep. I don't think I'll be able to stay awake during classes. But, I really wanted to talk to my online friends.

'It would just take a minute. Then you can sleep.'

I guess it wouldn't hurt to say hi. I grab my phone from my bedside table, and opened the chats and it was filled with different messages with different contexts from different people.

'HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE NEW GAME? IT RELEASED ABOUT 2 MINUTES AGO'- Saman8P0

'WOAH ILSA HELP ME WITH THIS, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT COCONUTS'-TaterTotterF80

'I UPDATED MY GRAPHICS CARD OMG PC MASTER RACE FTW! DID YOU DO YOURS YET?'-MaiHardy1080

It's going to be a long night.

--Many Hours Later--

It's 5:23 am and I didn't get sleep at all, due to the constant messages I had to answer. I don't mind though, as long as we're friends and that they don't neglect me. I've always been portrayed as a socially awkward, I'm not, it's that just I have a lot of trouble approaching people. Talking to people in the virtual world is actually way better than interacting with real people in the real world. I should've listened to myself instead of Lisa. It's okay, I can stop myself next time.

Lisa has been quite quiet. Hopefully I can sleep now.

'Yeah go ahead and sleep.'

Woah, where did she come from?