A female soul was murdered by her lover. A giant shape-shifting horse. A vampire creature that takes the form of a newborn baby.
These are just a few of the many supernatural creatures that appear in Trace - Netflix's first Filipino animated series - based on the widely popular comic book series of the same name.
The series revolves around undercover detective Alexandra Tress, who goes around town solving crimes, killing monsters - in short, generally trying to save the world.
But these are not the kind of monsters that just live in story books. Rather, these monsters are in the modern world - each of their stories reveals different aspects of Filipino society.
Brutal Drug war
"None of you are police saints. We are not people for you, we are just numbers, figures."
It's a line spoken by a character who tends to turn the dead into zombies, ordering them to attack police officers as revenge for their brother who was killed by a cop.
It is hard not to notice the similarities between what is happening in the Philippines and what is happening today in a country beset by allegations of police brutality.
In 2020, a UN report found that more than 8,000 people have been killed by police since President Rodrigo Duterte took office.
Mr Duterte has launched an aggressive campaign against the drug - but critics say his campaign has given police officers the ability to attack suspects with "close to punishment".
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So it was remarkable when, in 2018, three officers were found guilty of murdering a 17-year-old teenager. Kylian Delos Santos was found dead in a dark and dirty alley - alleged to be a drug-runner, although this was never confirmed.
But comics producer Budjet Tan says he "had no intention of making a statement, [or pursuing an agenda]".
The cops aren't the only shady characters in the series. Mayor Santamaria - an important character - plays a dirty politician.
He has been seen making deals with Asang - smuggling of human beings from slums in exchange for power.
Asang is an umbrella term for vampiric and malevolent spirits – arguably the most commonly known creatures in local folklore. These creatures suck blood, eat human flesh and change shape.
A professor, Bliss Lim, said, "Philippine folklore has many types of asanga. There are witches, beasts, bloodsuckers, corpse eaters, as well as winged monsters that suck unborn babies from pregnant women." of Film and Media Studies at the University of California at Irvine.
"Tres draws from Asang lore but updates it in creative ways. They are Manila's underworld residents, advocates of nightclubs or criminal gangs involved in gun smuggling."
According to Mr Tan, he drew inspiration for Trace "in the best and worst way" from what he saw around him in Manila.
"It's the kind of stories we see from our headlines... so it made sense — whether it was about the police or the politicians, that they got cast in those roles."
Catholicism and the Supernatural
Another major creature that appears in the series is Tianac - a vampire creature who takes the form of a newborn baby.
Once picked up by the victim, it returns to its original form and attacks.
In the show, Tianc is portrayed as a child who was miscarried by his mother - and later comes back to haunt him. But it's more complicated than just a vengeful child - the series sees the infant as someone who has been abandoned by their mother, who is now longing for some kind of love.
The topic of abortion is a sensitive topic in Asia's only Christian nation, where more than 80% of its population identifies as Roman Catholic.
Abortion is illegal and there is a lot of anger at it, but reports say thousands of women perform abortions in secret every year.
But while Catholicism continues to exert great influence on the Philippines – home to one of the largest Catholic populations in the world – the country still has deep beliefs in the supernatural.
Resto Cruz, a lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, told the BBC: "[In Tianyak's case], you can see the spirit of mythology with some Catholic ideas in the Philippines."
“These were indigenous beliefs that were always present in the Philippines of organisms like Asang – so when the Spanish brought in Catholicism, it created this combination – resulting in the kind of Catholicism you see today, where faith is insisted upon, But at the same time, there is still faith in these beings."
But according to Rev Father Hermel O Pama, many people in the Philippines "see no difficulty in being Christian and pay a healthy sense of respect to the belief systems that have existed [since pre-colonial times]".
However, Professor Lim told the BBC that Spanish colonialism may have affected modern Filipino society in more ways than one.
She quotes folklore scholar Herminia Menez, who suggests that the original Aswang were actually Babaylans – female shamans who refused to convert to Catholicism.
“According to Menez, the figure of [aswang] was remodeled to discredit and evict [in] female shamans,” she says.
In Trace however, the role of Babylon is one that has been recaptured by its main character, Alexandra Trace - and portrayed as a tremendous force for good.
"Alexandra is presented as a fusion of the masculine-identified warrior (Mandirigma) with the feminine-identified magician-healer (Babylan)," Prof Lim tells the BBC. "He himself is a very modern take on a pre-colonial animist figure."
Mr Tan says that he and comics illustrator Cajo Baldissimo first envisioned the role of Alexandra as a man.
He said, "In the first draft, he was your typical tough guy action star kind of character. But there was something that felt so standard."
"Even in the Philippines, we don't see so much of a female lead to have that kind of rigor and grit about her... and she being a Babylon-mandirigma... that's exactly it. Got it right."