Hiraya (HEST #1)

Notes

To everyone who reached this far, thank you so much for taking time to read the story of Seraphiel and Hiraya.

Their story actually started from a Filipino school project back when I was 14.

It was a short story then consisted of thirteen mere chapters. Awhile later, I decided to turn it into a novel. At ngayon ito na ang naging resulta.

It took me two years (December 2019 - December 2021) to finish this, so really, thank you so much to everyone who's been patient enough to see this through.

And since this is also my very first novel, needless to say it is my worst one hahahahahahaha. Sorry, loves! Nasa beginner level palang ako ng sarili ko so I'm not capable of offering my best to all of us yet. There's still so much room for improvement, which makes everything exciting! And I shall constantly push myself to improve in every chapter, in every arc, and in every story!

Now on to the serious stuff, there's a handful of contemporary issues mentioned in this story. But mainly, this novel focuses on the following:

Corporal punishments and emotional manipulation

Cycle of domestic abuse

Rape

Abortion

Economic inequality in agriculture society; Violence and oppression in agriculture society

Political dynasty

And finally, injustice in court and how others could just shove their crimes under the rug with their money. The sad reality is that accountability isn't always applied. Especially if money and power is involved.

On a side note, the political dynasties in this story are entirely fictional and does not, in anyway, pertains to a particular political clan in real life.

However, since political dynasty is truly a thing in real life, some of their attributes may be present in real life as well. Because yes, obviously things like graft and corruption exists. Or things such as "inheriting" political positions. As well as the reasons why it's almost impossible to eradicate political clans completely since there are many pros alongside their cons. All of these are present in real life.

But the ones mentioned in here are still fictional. They were created out of my imagination and their purpose is to act in this made-up world fantasy, rather than to serve as a mirror of real people. And this is precisely why I tried to make each clan, especially the three spiders, to be a mixture of different inspirations of people when I first created them.

With that said, let's finally head on to the epilogue and finish the journey of Hiraya and Seref!