Ava (Patreon)

The sun outside was brutal, the kind that makes the world shimmer… but in here, in this derelict building, everything was shadows and secrets. Light slipped through cracked windows in narrow ribbons, catching the dust in midair like it was trying to dance for me. The place smelled like old wood, old stories, and maybe a little trouble — the kind I pretend I don’t like.

I stood in the center of the room, my black denim shorts and simple top looking almost too clean against all this delicious decay. Behind me, a gravity-painted Arab figure stared down from the wall, its gaze sharp and knowing. I swear the painting watched me move — or maybe I just liked imagining it did.

“Slow,” Moroi murmured with the camera raised. “Let the light fall on you… play with it.”

Oh, I could do that.

I took a step — careful, but not too careful — letting my weight shift just enough to make it interesting. The broken floor creaked under me, and a sunbeam slid across my thigh before disappearing again into shadow. I almost followed it with my fingertip, just to tease the moment a little more.

Every movement felt like a conversation between me and the light:

I leaned… it stretched.

I turned… it chased the shape of me.

I paused… and it lingered like it wasn’t done with me yet.

Moroi kept clicking, each shutter sounding like a quiet little secret being taken down and saved. I knew he’d deepen the shadows later, sharpen the beams, pull texture out of the wall and that staring figure. But right now, the building already felt alive — like I’d dared it to wake up.

This wasn’t about danger.

It wasn’t even about ruin.

It was about how I carried myself inside all that darkness…

how I claimed the space with a tilt of my head,

a slow breath,

a deliberate step across a floor that had forgotten what elegance looked like.

I didn’t just walk through the building.

I owned it —

one teasing, sunlit shadow at a time