Effective Immediately

Have you ever dreamed of clocking in at the same gray building in the city, wearing the same clothes, doing the same mundane tasks, day after day after day?Erica Burnings takes the corporate job. Not because it's her dream. Not because it's everything she's ever wanted. She takes it because she needs to survive. Because a degree isn't supposed to sit around collecting dust. Because nine dollars an hour was never going to be enough for the life she's supposed to be building. Her parents need to see her doing this. So she does the only thing left to do. She trades mornings that belonged to her for a schedule that belongs to someone else.At first, it feels like every other office.The late-night phone calls become routine. A private conversation somehow finds its way back to Human Resources. Coworkers learn to smile through exhaustion. Employee portraits lining the walls seem wrong for just a moment, as though every face belongs in a casket, until she looks again.Everyone tells her she's imagining things.Everyone tells her this is just work.As the months pass, Erica begins losing more than her time. Her health declines. Her friendships fade. The person she used to be becomes harder to recognize. Piece by piece, without ever naming what's happening, she starts disappearing from her own life while still showing up for everyone else's.Effective Immediately is a psychological horror novel about corporate America, ambition, burnout, and the quiet ways people surrender themselves one workday at a time.Because sometimes reality is far more frightening than fiction.