Chapter 5 – Hidden Camera, Real Terror

The morning came slowly, as if the sun was reluctant to rise over Lopez Mansion. It didn’t matter. Inside, it still felt like night.

Maricar leaned against one of the ballroom’s stone pillars, her phone resting on a portable tripod. Despite everything that had happened, she was still streaming. Somehow, her signal hadn’t dropped once since arriving.

💬 “Are you safe, queen??”

💬 “That mirror ritual last night? I have CHILLS.”

💬 “Did anyone else hear her say her lola’s prayer? I swear I felt something shift in my room.”

The comment section had turned into a strange mix of fandom, spiritual support group, and urban legend archive. The numbers climbing steadily — now at 28,000 live viewers.

Maricar took a sip of bottled water and glanced at Jasper. He was sitting on the edge of his cot, hands shaking as he tried to light a cigarette. He’d barely spoken since the ritual.

“You feeling any better?” she asked.

He gave her a faint smile. “I don’t remember what happened. Just… flashes. A voice that wasn’t mine. And a vision that kept showing me someone I wasn’t.”

Maricar nodded. “That’s how it starts.”

He looked at her, eyes wide. “Starts?”

Before she could answer, a crew member burst through the ballroom doors.

“Maricar. Director wants you. Now.”

The control room was hidden behind the library’s revolving bookshelf. Only a few of the influencers even knew it existed. Inside, a bank of monitors displayed live camera feeds from nearly every corner of the mansion. Each screen was numbered: 01 to 50. Some showed static. Others showed rooms she hadn’t seen yet.

Maricar stood beside the Director, who stared intently at screen 32. It was glitching, flickering between static and a feed of a dark hallway lined with old religious statues.

“I didn’t authorize this camera,” the Director muttered.

“You didn’t?” Maricar raised a brow.

He shook his head. “Some of the cameras are moving… by themselves. Reconnecting to locations we didn’t wire.”

He pointed to screen 41. A new screen view flickered. It showed a girl in white, standing completely still in the middle of the second-floor hallway. She faced the wall.

Long black hair covered her back. Her arms dangled at her sides like broken strings.

Maricar felt her stomach twist.

“There aren’t supposed to be actors, right?”

“There aren’t,” the Director said flatly. “No one hired her.”

💬 “That’s the same girl from last night’s stream — the reflection!”

💬 “Check her hands. Rewind. She moved. She waved.”

💬 “I swear she was watching us during the ritual.”

The girl on the screen turned her head—just slightly.

No eyes. No mouth. Just smooth skin where her face should have been.

Then the feed cut to static.

The Director stepped back. “Whatever she is… she’s not part of the show.”

Back in the ballroom, Kenji was losing it.

“I’m out,” he said, pacing. “I don’t care what the contract says. I didn’t sign up for possession, death rituals, or whatever just screamed through the fireplace last night.”

“No one’s holding you,” Nikki said, though her voice trembled. “But have you noticed the front door hasn’t opened since the first night?”

Kenji froze.

“No one’s come in or out.”

“And the windows?” Jasper added. “All sealed. Even the ones we know were open yesterday.”

They all looked at Maricar.

“You’ve been the calmest through all this,” Nikki said. “You knew how to do that ritual. You knew what those symbols meant. How?”

Maricar hesitated.

“My Lola was a Babaylan. A spiritual healer. She taught me… things. Stuff I never took seriously until now.”

“Like exorcisms and ghost magic?” Kenji asked.

“Like how to survive when the spirit world starts bleeding into ours.”

That night, Maricar set up her phone again. She’d learned something from the chat—one of her viewers had gone down a rabbit hole after seeing the symbol from the attic ritual.

It was called “Talinghaga.”

An ancient protective mark — used by Babaylans to ward off spirits that pretended to be human.

She drew the symbol on her wrist with ash and salt, just as her Lola had once shown her. The chat watched in real time.

💬 “She’s warding off shape-shifters!!”

💬 “This girl needs to be in a Netflix show already.”

💬 “Wait. Rewind. Someone was standing behind her — NOT joking.”

Suddenly, a notification popped up from the mansion’s internal system.

CAMERA 44 ONLINE. LOCATION: SERVANT’S STAIRS.

The Director had already warned them — no camera should be operating in that part of the mansion. The stairwell had been bricked up during renovations. No one had accessed it in decades.

Maricar clicked into the feed.

The camera showed a cramped stairwell descending into darkness. But at the edge of the frame… a face.

Not a full face.

Just a mouth.

Grinning. Wide. Unmoving.

And then—whispers.

Not through the stream, but from inside the ballroom.

Everyone froze.

Whispers. All around them. Whispering Maricar’s name.

Maricar stood up.

“This isn’t a game anymore,” she said. “The house is filming itself now. And it wants me in every scene.”

Jasper’s voice cracked. “Why you?”