Everyone in that old campus in downtown Cebu knew better than to take night classes in the basement of the main building. Professors brushed it off as superstition, but students whispered otherwise. They said that when the wind blew from the harbor and the bells from the nearby church tower echoed through the halls, she cried again.
The basement was small, always damp, and smelled faintly of rust and old wood. Only one class was ever held there, a general elective, scheduled inconveniently at 7:30 PM. Students complained about flickering lights, chairs scraping the floor when no one moved, and the sound of a woman sobbing softly in the corner.
One semester, a group of students decided to prove the stories wrong. They stayed behind after class, laughing, teasing the air. The crying started as a faint echo—like someone weeping behind a wall. Then came a whisper, so close it brushed one girl’s ear:
“You shouldn’t be here…”
When they turned to leave, the door wouldn’t budge. Their phones died one by one. The crying grew louder, desperate, ragged, and the lights went out completely. In the darkness, someone felt a hand clutch their ankle.
By the time the janitor opened the door the next morning, he found the classroom empty… except for five sets of footprints, all leading into the far wall, and none coming back out.
Since then, no one holds classes in that basement anymore. But sometimes, if you pass by the building late at night, you can still hear her crying, especially on rainy evenings, when the old church bells ring in the distance.
