Wazzup Pilipinas Original Short Stories Series: Hera

Wazzup Pilipinas!


With Hera's experiences with her father and husband, women, even today, are still striving to achieve gender equality. Men are traditionally superior to women. This is an old saying that is still true nowadays. Currently, women wants to be recognized not just as a housewife but as an individual who could also do what men could do.

Traditionally, men are the only one who should be handling weapons such as guns. But to show her invulnerability, she showed everybody that women are also made to hold weapons especially when they are in great danger. They should posses strength and bravery, too.

Generally, men are superior to women. This is one thinking that was changed in the story. Hera proved that women should be equally superior to men. There are things that we all know were only done by men but are now also done by women. Violence against women should be stopped. Women shouldn't be treated as slaves, prisoners, or possessions.

Government groups focusing on women's rights are very essential to each community to give attention to those women who are experiencing the same as what Hera does. They need to feel loved and cared by people around them. Or else, just like Hera, they would also experience depression and other illnesses. They are not only physically ill, but also mentally, emotionally, and psychologically.

We hope you will enjoy our short story for the day.

“Though we have the courage to raise our daughters more like our sons, we've rarely had the courage to rise our sons like our daughters.” -Gloria Steinem

The Adams family have been known to Germany since the World War II. Until today, highly – respected military officers with high ranks in the army come from their clan.

Lieutenant General Alexander Adams, a high-ranking officer in the army had a daughter named Hera. He was very disappointed when he knew that Hermione, his housewife, cannot give birth to another child again. He always wanted to have a son to carry the family name and be the next in line to be in the army.

Hera never felt his father wanted her presence. Everything she does has to be approved by her father. She must always act according to what his father wants her to. She was not allowed to go out and have friends. Hera was homeschooled. Everytime she committed mistakes, she would be locked in the basement, with no meals all day. She never felt loved.

Even though her mother is against everything that was done to Hera, she cannot do anything. Or else Alexander will hit her and Hera.

When Hera turned the legal age, she still wasn't allowed to accept suitors. Alexander decided that he should be the one to choose the man who will marry his daughter.

One night, while Hera and her mother is having their dinner, Alexander came home with a guy. Her father introduced him as Second Lieutenant Harris Dawson, the fiance of Hera.

Hera does not want to get married, not with Harris. She wants to be with someone whom she really loves. But she just maintained her composed self and acknowledged everything her father said because she's afraid they would get hurt again.

After a few months, Alexander decided that Hera should live with Harris. They would settle down in Denmark, where her father fixed everything in their new home. Hera thinks that she can achieve the freedom she never had, now that she would be far from her father.

For twenty years, she experienced the worst days of her life. She never expected Harris would be worse than her father. When Harris arrives home drunk, he would just hit Hera for no reason. She wasn't allowed to go out and talk to anyone. She was like a prisoner and a slave.

When her parents visits them, Harris would act like what he was when Hera first saw him. Harris would be very sweet and caring to Hera in front of them. But once they leave, the injustice would start all over again.

No night would pass that she wouldn't cry to sleep. Her beauty faded as well as her hope to be independent. When experiencing illness, she would just rest and pray and wait for her condition to be better again.

She is physically, emotionally, mentally, and psychologically ill. Hera is withstanding depression. She is very hungry and eager to be in the outside of the coners of the prison they call home.

The house's pleasant appearance (when they first transferred in Denmark) turned into a dark haunted house. From the outside you could feel the sadness of the persons living there. Some may have mistakenly regard the house as a stock room or an abandoned prison.

One day, Hera was cleaning the kitchen when she noticed a hole on the wall below their sink. She used all her strength and equipments so she could eradicate the wall and finally escape.

Once she was able to fit herself in a small opening, she eventually found small houses around theirs with people socializing with one another. She was walking barefooted and unkempt, and a lot of people was staring at her from head to toe like she is a disgrace to the society.

All she thinks is that they might be like Harris too. Based on their looks, it seems like they would hurt her the same way Harris does. Wherever she looks, she sees the face of her father and her husband.

She drew a gun and shot everyone who was approaching her and those who were trying to stop her.

A few yards away, she saw Harris on his way to Hera. She is thinking whether to run away or shoot him. She realizes that she is now invulnerable and nothing could harm her, now that she has a gun.

Ever since she was a kid her father already wanted a son so that there would be someone who would be able to be in the army. She might not be in the army but she knows how to use weapons, there's no difference, she thinks. Hera aimed Harris' head and shot straight.

Now that Harris is gone, she could go back to Germany to save her mother from Alexander.

After a long trip even Hera didn't know how she got home, she reached for the door. She assumed it will be her mom she would see since her dad is always on the field. But she was surprised when she saw it was her father who opened the door.

She was about to reach for her gun and point it at him but her father knelt down and asked for her apology. Hera was surprised with his father's action but she just listened to whatever he said. Alexander finally accepted Hera as his child and asked forgiveness for whatever he has done to her and Hermione.

When she asked Alexander about her mother. Alexander told her daughter that Hermione is already dead. “She hanged herself in a rope in the basement. She committed suicide.” he said.

The next morning, a body of a Lieutenant General named Alexander Adams was found in the back of their house, burried and dead. There was no mark of any shot or stab except for a mark in his chest written through an incision of a blade.

The mark says:

You killed my mom. Now I killed you, father. - Hera


Contributed by Alianna Dorothy Gutierrez