Banal 2019

Erika Villanueva is faced with a heartbreaking reality: her mother is terminally ill, and she clings to a whispered legend about a sacred mountain where a miracle cure once offered the promise of healing. Driven by love and desperation, Erika gathers a small team to chase that legend, enlisting her friends Richard “Richie/Rich” Santos, Rithea “Thea” Del Rosario, and Jesus “Mac” De Andres to join the expedition toward the peak. The climb is a test of endurance and faith, with the group navigating treacherous trails, the weight of Erika’s hope, and the gnawing fear that time is not on their side.

As night falls, the group experiences a terrifying turn: everyone is seized by a terrifying possession except Erika, leaving Thea and Mac badly injured as a spectral force lashes out. The next morning brings another shock: Yella De Leon—the group’s friend (referred to as Yel in the tale)—is missing, and the night’s violence is revealed to be more than a haunting. In the dawn light, Thea and Mac lie dead, fallen to a ghostly assault that leaves the survivors shaken and more determined to press on, even as the mountain’s mysteries deepen.

With grit and a growing sense of danger, Richie and Erika continue toward the mountain’s summit. They soon learn a startling truth from a faction of armed men: Erika has been chosen to be a demonic sacrificial offering to the God of Tumao, Ina (Mother). The revelation upends Erika’s understanding of the journey and of the forces guiding it. The scene shifts from a quest for healing to a confrontation with a dangerous cult that claims dominion over the mountain, where the Marian devotees she’d hoped to encounter do not exist; instead, shamans revere Ina, a figure feared and revered in equal measure.

Erika’s capture sheds new light on the truth behind the expedition: Yella De Leon is revealed as a member of the cult, and her belief in Erika’s supposed purity makes her a particularly dangerous antagonist. The cult’s grip tightens as Erika confronts the reality of her fate, while Rich and Erika race against time to thwart the sacrifice. When they finally reach the heart of the cult, a fierce and chaotic conflict erupts, and Yel sustains injuries in the confrontation before Erika and Rich manage a narrow escape.

The escape does not end the ordeal, however. Yel offers Erika one last, terrible choice: sacrifice her own life to save Erika’s mother. The moment is fraught with moral peril, and Erika’s decision pulses with fear, love, and resolve. In a decisive act of defiance, Erika seizes a flare gun and fires, setting Yel ablaze and ending the danger she posed. The blaze burns away the immediate threat and serves as a grim signal of Erika’s unwilling descent into the cult’s cruel calculus.

In the aftermath, Erika and Rich are rescued by authorities, their bodies and spirits scarred but intact, carrying the weight of what they witnessed and the choice Erika made to protect her mother. The journey that began as a search for a miraculous cure becomes a harrowing confrontation with belief, manipulation, and the limits of human endurance. Through it all, Erika’s determination to save her mother remains the throughline, anchoring her actions even as the mountain’s dark church of Ina tests every ounce of courage she possesses. The story closes on a note of relief and relief’s cost, a reminder that sometimes faith can heal, but the path to healing can be perilous and personal.