Azure

Psychic Savior

Want the haircut of your dreams?Come to 'Denise's Salon'.
Denise's Salon features four professional hairstylists who can give the most perfect haircuts along with some great advice.

This was the advertisement people saw for Denise's Salon. It was a pretty good one, except that it was missing a tiny detail: they were psychics. Owned and managed by four people: John, Nina, Mandy and Denise, the salon was famous among the locals. On a regular day, it averaged 15 customers, but on the weekend, it was filled to the brim.
It was one such regular weekend when something extraordinary happened. The salon was filled with customers as was the usual. Mandy was attending an old lady with a dull and wrinkly face with marriage issues. So Mandy sent her off along with a brand new hairstyle and some amazing advice.

Amidst such bantering and chit chatting, a young girl in her early 20s walked in. There was a bit of a scuffle, after which she finally settled down on one of the chairs. She was attended to by Denise, who had a strange look on her face. As psychics, they could easily read people's auras but Denise couldn't access the young girl's aura or her thoughts.
She could only sense something dark and foreboding. For some time there was nothing but silence, while Denise wondered which hairstyle to give the girl. Just when she was about to ask her, the girl said
"A trim with fringes would do just fine." Strange, Denise mused. As she began to work on her hair, Denise couldn't help but wonder what was happening. It was the first time that they had faced such difficulty in reading people's minds. She thought about what the girl did for a living and from where had she come. Just then, the girl said " My name is Maya and I'm from Jaipur. I work as a chef in a local restaurant."

This time, Denise was taken aback. It seemed as if Maya had access to Denise's thoughts. She completed her haircut as quickly as she could and told Maya that she could leave. Maya paid what was due and just when she was about to leave, she said:
"Life is a journey full of surprises. Things that you don't expect can happen to you at the most unexpected times." With this, she left the shop.

The other three had noticed the exchange and found it to be off as well. Denise was about to approach them when she saw a man outside the window, just staring at them. Brushing it off, she talked to the others, sharing her rendezvous. They were quite surprised as they hadn't experienced anything of the sort before either. Suffice to say, they were caught off guard.

The next day, as the four of them continued their routines Maya walked in along with three other people. The group of people included a shabbily clothed middle- aged man, a very young and attractive woman with long silky hair and a sharply dressed young gentleman. They introduced themselves as George, Monica and Peter respectively. And then there was Maya. Maya said that they were her friends and they too needed haircuts. John, Nina and Mandy gave each of them a haircut. Just like Maya those three also had something unusual and dark about them. They found it difficult to read their auras or their thoughts.

As soon as they would wonder about any of them, one of them would answer the unasked questions. The suspicion grew.

Meanwhile, Denise sat in one corner quietly observing Maya who was reading a covered book while her friends were getting a haircut. They completed their haircuts and George and Monica paid. However, Peter didn't have change and so Nina and Mandy went inside, towards the cash counter which was next to the store room.

They were looking for change, when they heard a loud thump followed by a crashing sound. Scared, they went out and much to their surprise they discovered that Denise and John were missing. One of chairs had a broken leg and the styling tools were scattered all across the salon. Maya and her three friends were also nowhere to be found.

Flustered and scared, Mandy and Nina closed the salon and went to search for their two friends. They were in the middle of their search when a strange middle aged man approached them. He was the same man who had observed the incident yesterday. He told them that he knew where his friends were. They didn't want to trust him but decided to, seeing as they were left with no choice. And so it was that they followed him into a street that ended at an empty shoe shop.
Inside they went and much to their relief, their friends were there. John and Denise were tied up together. Freeing them, they asked them what it was that had happened.

Apparently, Maya and her friends were psychics as well. However they were ones who involved themselves in black magic. They were on the lookout for possible candidates to join their cult and so had attacked Denise and company. However, before they could do anything particularly harmful, the man had showed up. Maya and her friends had quickly deserted the place, seeing the man.

Though the four were happy that everything and everyone was fine, they were a tad bit guilty and sad as well. They had wanted to thank the man for saving their lives. They felt as if they should've taken more efforts to look for him. However, they didn't get to that, as the next day, the man showed up to the salon himself.
"Hello. I believe that we've got some debts to settle."

-Rtr.Richa Parekh.