A child’s voice—small, crystalline—sings a Christmas carol from an empty bell tower after midnight mass: too fast, too high, always the same hymn. Then follows a wet, heavy slapping across the cobblestones, the smell of old incense and something metallic clinging to the night. In this episode, we trace how the nine nights of Simbang Gabi—devotion, tradition, and communal hope—can also become the stage for a darker bargain: the Sacred Betrayal, where perfect faith, once broken, turns into a curse.

Listen as I, Paul, weave together chilling folklore, personal tragedy, and historical memory—from Marco’s failed nine-day vow and the vanished spirit of his sister, to Clarissa’s wartime moral compromise and the eerie signs left on a family’s farm. We explore how pre-colonial spirits, colonial theology, and modern fear collide, creating stories where compassion, weariness, or one careless sound can open the door to something hungry in the shadows.

This episode contains themes and scenes that may be deeply unsettling. Listener discretion advised.

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