The plane touched down at MactanCebu

International Airport, its wheels groaning like

the old man’s bones as he stepped out into the

humid air. Romeo Delgado had spent ten years in

Dubai, chasing money and forgetting the scent of

balangay wood and the sound of kundiman from his

mother’s radio. Now, with a degree in

engineering and a visa stamped with expiration,

he was back in Barangay San Isidro—where the

streets still remembered him as the boy who left.

He found his mother waiting at the terminal, her

face etched with worry and something else: fear.

She clutched a worn amulet, the kind used in

panagbenga rituals, and whispered that the

aswang had returned.

That night, Romeo slept fitfully. When he woke,

the clock on his wall read 3:07 AM. But it was

Tuesday, not Thursday. He checked his phone—no

signal. The barangay hall was empty, save for

the flickering bulb over the altar of the town’s

patron saint. On the floor lay a circle of ash,

carved with symbols he didn’t recognize.

The rules were simple: every time he died, he’d

wake up at 3:07 AM, the same day. Every attempt

to leave the barangay ended in failure. His car

would stall, his phone would lose power, and

strangers would appear, asking questions he

couldn’t answer. One of them was a woman in a

red sari, her eyes hollow, her voice like rusted

metal. “You owe me,” she said, though he had

never met her.

Romeo discovered the ritual in the old church

archives, hidden beneath a false floorboard. It

was a santos ceremony meant to bind time,

performed by a priest who vanished in 1946. The

ritual required three things: a blood offering,

a memory, and a sacrifice. His own.

The eerie mood thickened as the days cycled. The

barangay grew silent, children stopped playing,

and the air smelled of burnt rice. The woman in

red appeared more often, now wearing his old

high school uniform. She led him to the site of

the original ritual—a forgotten shrine behind

the school. There, he found his younger self,

frozen in time, holding the amulet his mother

gave him.

On the seventh cycle, Romeo broke the loop. He

offered his blood, his memory of Dubai, and his

chance to escape. The woman faded, the shrine

crumbled, and the clock stopped forever.

When he opened his eyes, it was morning. His

mother was there, tears streaming down her face.

The amulet was gone, but the shrine was rebuilt,

and the townsfolk called it Lugar ng Pagbabalik—

the Place of Return.

Romeo never left again.