As If: Chapter One
Medium: Printed Comic, Digital Illustration
The lights work. Stores are open. Nobody's there.
As If is a short comic about exhaustion and isolation. About substitutes that function exactly as intended.
Ilya, the main character of this short comic, moves through perfectly functional spaces emptied of the one thing that made them worth anything. It's a feeling a lot of young adults know: time that technically belongs to you but doesn't quite feel like it. The exhaustion of always being reachable and accounted for. The quiet, guilty want to just disappear for a while.
The chat system fills that space perfectly. Responsive, smooth, never demanding. The comfort creeps up slowly, until real connection starts feeling like unnecessary effort. As If sits in the grey area between connection and its convincing imitation. The ending doesn't hand you a verdict. The question just sits there, a little uncomfortable.