Mobola Johnson
Friday felt unusually quiet.
The kind of quiet that came before a storm.
After surviving the HR ambush, I expected things to cool down—but instead, the tension only thickened. People stopped copying me on emails. Meetings I was supposed to attend “shifted” without notice. It was subtle, calculated. The kind of slow freeze that made you question your own sanity.
But I refused to break.
I showed up early. Dressed sharp. Delivered on every deadline—even the ones I wasn’t officially given. If they were going to push me out, they’d have to do it with my head held high.
That afternoon, Obi asked me to meet him after work. We hadn’t seen each other properly in two weeks.
We sat in the car outside my apartment, the A/C humming between us.
“You’re shutting me out,” he said gently.
I looked away. “I’m just… trying to survive.”
“I get that. But I’m not the enemy.”
His voice was soft, but steady. And it hit me—I had been carrying everything alone. The anger. The fear. The exhaustion. Somewhere along the line, I stopped letting him in.
“I’m scared,” I admitted. “Not just of losing my job. Of losing myself in all this.”
He reached out, held my hand.
“Then fight, Maka. But don’t lose the part of you that makes all this worth it.”
His words stayed with me into the weekend.
Monday morning, I walked into the office and saw something that stopped me cold: my name had been removed from the *Project Phoenix* campaign board. Completely wiped.
I stared at the wall.
This wasn’t office politics anymore.
It was war.
I turned, walked straight to Linda’s desk. “Are you part of this?” I asked, calm but firm.
She blinked, surprised. “No. I heard Bako said you were being ‘reassigned’—whatever that means.”
I exhaled slowly.
They wanted me to disappear quietly. Fade into a corner.
But they underestimated one thing:
I had nothing left to lose.
And I was done playing by their rules.
This was no longer about one project, or one promotion.
It was about reclaiming my voice—and making damn sure they heard it.
Mobola Johnson is a creative writer and a master storyteller