A boy wakes to his family's hands pinning him to the bed, and to a blade steeped in old prayers. What happens next will mark an entire village.

In a rural barrio where Holy Week chants drift through the night like a second atmosphere, Marco grows up believing his parents' devotion is a shield. But when a midnight ritual turns his home into an altar, he is cut open not just by steel but by bloodlines older than his family name. Bound, chanting, and silent, those he trusted become his executioners.

Dragged to the quarry where candles burn in hundreds and resin bleeds from the stone, Marco is offered to a creature with three crimson eyes: the Herald of an ancient star that devours light to walk as light. The chains of amulets and scapulars meant to protect him fuse instead into shackles. His wound becomes a seal. And his memories, his only anchor, are stripped one by one as the entity prepares to walk through him.

While Captain Lito, Mila, and Father Crispin fight to break the rite, the village begins to change. Families vanish behind bolted doors. Crucifixes disappear from walls. Holy songs sag into off-key dirges. At the church steps, sandals accumulate without owners. Each year, more appear. Each year, more disappear.

Told in a chorus of notebooks, patrol reports, and final confessions, this novel traces the slow conversion of a boy into a vessel and a village into silence. The atmosphere is thick with incense, sulfur, and betrayal; the horror is not just ritual but communal, creeping under doors and settling into lungs.

Readers will feel the dread of folkloric Catholic rites turned inside out, the intimacy of family warmth twisted into cold ceremony, the pulse of an old cosmology pushing through bamboo floors and candle wax. This is not a story of exorcism but of inheritance, where faith is the blade and kinship is the wound.

Step into the quarry, where the altar waits. Once you hear the chant, you'll know why no one answers when you call.

Autorentext

Jayson R. Valencia is a Senior Software Engineer by profession, but when he is not writing code he is writing nightmares. A storyteller with a deep love for Asian folklore and horror, Jayson is the mind behind chilling anthologies such as Tales of Haunted Japan, Tales of Filipino Terror, Dark Tales of Asia, and Tales of Asian Horror.

While horror is his forte, Jayson occasionally ventures into horror comedy, blending sharp wit with sinister twists for stories that make readers laugh nervously in the dark. Whether crafting clean code or dark tales, he is always building something unforgettable.