𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗥𝗬 | 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐞𝐧𝐞

A voice in my head screamed, "Oh no! It is 10 PM already!" as fear gripped my heart, I packed my lipstick in my bag.

"Tatay Rene will close the school; we must move, gals." Diana clutched my arm and laughed.

"Shhh... Tatay Rene will see us..." Kristina said, looking at us four seriously.

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Rumors whispered in muted tones say that our institution feels different when the sun has long gone and we await a new dawn. What people used to call a lively corriodor of banter would feel a bit too desolate, a bit too passive, or where the faint noise of footfalls trod a bit too near. And in all of it, walks Rene—the night guard of the school.

Despite that, we called him ‘Tatay Rene’ because he is an old man. He was not our average school security guard. He had such pedantic habits—it was almost an obsession with routine, with every door locked precisely at 10 PM, patrolling the stairs like it was a beat, checking every corner at the edge of the world for grave circumstances over his job.

It was then, right when the sun went down behind the buildings of the campus, that I knew him off. It seemed, at that moment, that the air had grown thicker, suspending the school's breath, so to speak. Jhaymer and I were alone in the Student Affairs Services office, finishing last year's papers. This evening, Tatay Rene, the school guard, had made his rounds as always; this was a tad different tonight.

Jhaymer was seated directly across from me, engrossed in whatever matter was running through his phone. "You good?" he asked me, although his eyes remained on his phone.

I answered with just a nod, a bit distracted by the intermittent blinking of the lights over our heads. "I just don't know...something about the night feels kinda off."

We sat there in silence when we heard a thud outside the office. My heart pounded and Jhaymer raised an eyebrow. "Relax, it's probably just Tatay Rene."

The thought did not bring me any tranquility. I glanced out the window, catching a glimpse of Rene's shadow as he passed. But rather than continuing on down the hall, he stopped—right in front of our door. His silhouette stood still, and something about it made my stomach twist.

I stood, trying to calm myself. "I think we should head out."

Jhaymer shrugged nonchalantly, but his stuff was mentally gathered together. He knew what was going on. Finally, I opened the door. Rene was standing probably five feet away from the door, staring at us. His face was blank, but his eyes—maybe it was his eyes—had something that was dark. I had never seen them before.

"Leave…" Rene said, his voice cold and flat.

"We're leaving now," Jhaymer said in a desperate attempt to brighten up the atmosphere. "Just finishing up."

Rene didn't move. "NOW!"

His words weren't a suggestion; it was a threat. The lights in the hallways started to flicker again, plunging the hallway into darkness for a second time. I shivered. Something was seriously off. I could feel it. I yanked Jhaymer's arm, and we hastened in the direction of the exit, our footsteps echoing in the stillness.

We were walking by the security office when something caught my attention there: a stack of newspapers across a desk, one of which is dripping with a liquid so red, roses would've lost their hue on the spot.

I don't know why I stopped there or why I did, actually. "What in the world?!" I exclaimed, dragging Jhaymer along.

"What are you doing?" he hissed, but I didn't care, moving closer toward the desk. There is something laying there – headline of The Intervenor, our school paper, drenched in blood.

"𝙁𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙔𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙜 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡𝙨 𝙈𝙞𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝘼𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝘼𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙜𝙚𝙙 𝘼𝙨𝙨𝙖𝙪𝙡𝙩: 𝙏𝙬𝙤 𝙁𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙃𝙤𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙩𝙖𝙡, 𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙯𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙈𝙪𝙩𝙚"

My heart was racing. Headlined underneath was a grainy photo of the girls. There they sat, staring at me from the page—but only two of them were pictured. The other three were missing. There were no updates, no after-coverage, only a single, obscure mention buried deep in the story.

"They keep quiet but tell of a dark shadow watching, guarding, and keeping hidden."

Those words crawled under my skin. But my eyes seemed to wander more, wanting to get more information. And alas, my intuition proved right. There is something clipped at the back of the blood-soaked page – another gruesome sight. Picture of the five girls, three have red crosses in them.

"What in the hell is this?" I panted, holding up the paper for Jhaymer to read.

He went pale as he scanned the page. "I remember this. This happened near us, like a month ago. But no one ever found the other three girls."

"Look at the back. There's…"

Just then, just when I was ready to speak another word, I heard footsteps coming toward us from behind. We turned around. There, by the entrance of the security office, stood Rene. All of one side of his face was lost in shadow, but what there was light on was flung enough into silhouette by the lowered lights for us to get an idea of him. His face told us nothing, nor his eyes—but his eyes dug into me with a force that made my throat thicken.

"What's happening?" His voice was low, even colder than I ever remembered.

Jhaymer stepped forward, trying to sound nonchalant. "We are off; nothing can be salvaged from the milk spilled."

But Rene is not interested in taking any comfort. He took another step forward towards me, the beam of the flashlight cutting through the dark room. The grip was becoming so rigid it had turned all white with knuckles balling up, about to snap. "You know… you shouldn't have seen that."

My mind started reeling. Seen what? The newspaper? The girls? The picture with crosses in them? A nagging feeling started digging itself in. The flickering lights, the bizarre behavior of Rene, the insistence on the basement—it all pointed to something much, much worse than I had ever thought of.

"Tatay Rene, what is going on?" I demanded, trying to keep my voice from shaking as hard as possible inside. "What happened to those girls? And what is the meaning of this picture at the back?"

For a moment, Rene just stood there. The stillness stretched and yawned, so heavy and suffocating it felt like an actual thing with weight to it. Yet he grinned, with a sinister calmness that sent all my alarms ringing.

"Kid… some things are better off buried," he said, coming in even closer. "You don't have any right to question me, besides…it is none of your business!"

A sudden panic surged up within me. "What did you do?!"

Rene shifted to one side, started laughing maniacally. "I didn't do anything. But I promise, I have kept them safe. Safe from the likes of you who pry too much."

Jhaymer pulled me to my feet and walked toward the door. "We have to leave! Now!"

But just as we were leaving, Rene's voice cut across the air like a blade. "There's a reason only two were found… The others? Uhmm… let's just say they are somewhere no one will ever find them. But… in the event someone stumbles upon them… I cannot promise they will be found whole though."

I stayed frozen; his words now shaped themselves into a riddle, gnawing at my brain. "What the hell does that mean?" I turned to Jhaymer, my voice almost inaudible.

"Answers… that's what you want right?" Rene said, nudging the newspaper still clutched in my hand. “There you are!"

I looked down at the article, scanning it again. The words blurred together until one line stood out in my mind, over and over like a mantra: "Guards and hides."

I had not yet stitched it all together when Rene lunged for us, his flashlight swinging toward us like a bludgeon. We narrowly missed getting bashed like garlic in the counter as he crashed into the desk, sending papers flying all over the room. We took off for the hallway, fast! My heart pounding in my chest while making a dash for the door.

The slapping of air hit my face as we pushed through the double doors and out into the night. We ran so hard until we were at the extreme edge of the parking lot, far from the school, far from Rene's haunting words.

Breathing heavily, I turned my back to the building. Once again, the lights were turned on, and for that brief moment, I caught sight of Rene stationed by the main entrance, gazing at us. And as the lights went out that last time, like a phantom in the night, he was gone once more.

Jhaymer was doubled over, panting. "What the hell was that?! What did he mean about the girls?!"

I shook my head as if trying to shake off some sort of fear from my person. "I don't know, but whatever it is, we need to stay away from that place! Something's wrong with that Mang Rene or worse, the school!"

And as we stood there in the bitterly cold parking lot, the full weight of what we'd discovered settled over us. The school, the basement, the missing girls—it was all connected. Yet one thing was very certain: we had only scratched the surface of the horrors that lay hidden beneath our school.

Rene? No—he wasn't just an ordinary guard; he was the sentry beneath something we weren't supposed to know.

Note: This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this literature are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.