In the slums of Tondo, 19yearold Arnel repairs
broken appliances for a living, his hands
calloused from scavenging parts and soldering
wires. His mother, a nurse turned domestic
helper, sends what little she can from Saudi
Arabia, but it’s never enough. One rainy night,
he fixes a rusted clock that shouldn’t work—its
gears turn on their own, and inside, a figure
with elongated fingers and glowing eyes stares
back.
The next day, a stranger appears at his door. He
calls himself Elias, speaks in Taglish laced
with oldworld cadence, and says the clock was a
trap. Arnel dismisses him as a madman until the
same clock reappears in his room, now humming
with strange energy. Elias insists the machine
is part of a network—mechanical cages for aswang
spirits, trapped by American engineers during
the war.
Arnel is forced to follow Elias through the
city’s underbelly, where abandoned factories
pulse with unnatural light. They find others
like him—poor kids pulled into this hidden world,
each tied to a device that binds a spirit. The
rules are clear: break the chain, and the spirit
turns on you. Repair it, and you’re its keeper.
Elias reveals Arnel’s mother was once a keeper,
before she fled after her spirit nearly consumed
her. Now, the clock’s spirit is waking, and it
wants what it lost—Arnel’s blood. Forced
proximity becomes inevitable when the spirit
invades his dreams, whispering in his mother’s
voice.
In a final act, Arnel must choose: destroy the
clock and free the spirit, or repair it and
become its new host. He smashes the gears with a
wrench, scattering sparks and shadow. The spirit
screams, then vanishes. Elias disappears too,
leaving only a single line etched into the wall:
“Some chains are meant to break.”
The factory falls silent. Arnel walks home, the
weight in his chest lighter. The world outside
hasn’t changed—but something inside him has.
