A fake fortune teller scams people out of their money by manipulating information found on the internet. When a woman walks into her business, her act becomes her own nightmare.

Sherri lit incense around the room to prepare for any customers who sought help or advice, her mainstream profession, as the incense often made the room relaxing. Her desk assistant told her the list of appointment customers and those he 'overheard' seeking help. Her assistant did a lot of research and with that, it made her job so much easier. After all, helping people find closure was harder to do if it wasn't known what ailed them.

She knew what she was doing was fraudulent, but the money paid for the bills and people would fall for anything to get closure. She had to thank an old friend of hers, Selina, for the inspiration. Unlike her, Selina was a real psychic. Her ability was uncanny and unlike Sherri, Selina never bragged of her gift, never sought money, nor sought out grieving people. If anything, she despised her gift. Hearing spirits, predicting people's futures, and using anything she could to help others made her tired and miserable. Most real psychics were depressed having to constantly feel everything around them.

Sherri was jealous of how such a gift could be wasted on someone who thought it was a curse. She knew what it was worth to see what no one else could see, and she intended to use her gimmick to milk every penny from desperate idiots.

Her first customer of the day was a man whose husband passed away from a heart attack. She could tell his depression was prominent. Time to change fate, so to speak.

"I sense there is a shadow of pain among you, a loss of one close to you. You seek an answer. Is it your fault?"

The man froze at how she could have known that and scrunched up his nose trying not to cry. "I just wonder if we did too much. We always had fun, but I didn't know it could happen, you know?"

Sherri smiled, "Love is boundless. The human body though is mortal. He died loving you and he wouldn't have it any other way."

"He's here?" He asked confused.

"With you, attached to you. His spirit will never leave you. I sense he wants you to find more in life than what you see before you. 40 years old is not a stopping point, my dear, but a chance to continue. If you don't believe me, let me see if I can clarify what I may see is in store for you."

She pulled out her deck of tarot cards and the first card she pulled was that of The Wheel of Fortune. "I see plenty of changes not just current but upcoming."

Then The Fool was brought out. "I see a new beginning, one of perseverance and freedom from strife."

Finally, Sherri revealed her winning card: The World. "You will be whole again with your life anew and opportunities at your fingertips."

Whenever she played The World, it guaranteed customer satisfaction. Like a game of poker, it was her ace in convincing others to believe her. Whether or not her prophecies would come true now or later, she cared not. To see this man's face lighten up in amazement and forgetting his grief, even for a second, it almost warmed Sherri's heart.

Once she did a few more readings through various methods, she excused him, and he seemed a bit understanding of his situation more.

A customer later in the day was a woman, proud and stuffy. Sherri resisted the urge to laugh at this piece of work. She did her thing, uncaring of the consequences.

"I see a deeper neglect of yourself, one you hide under the secret of your success," she claimed as she put Judgment on its reverse side. Then she pulled out The Devil. "You crowd yourself in glamour that will not repay you, but it will play with your soul."

Last, she pulled The World. "But not all is lost. You will find the harmony you seek in your disintegrating lifestyle if you seek to repair what has been broken inside."

The woman frowned at first, but she began contemplating before breaking down. "They say I'm perfect, but I'm not. I do everything for my mother to make her happy. I just want to do what I want but we're aristocrats! Do you know how much an image means to us?! I don't want to look like a stuck-up Barbie doll all the time! I just want to be me!"

Sherri nodded, "Sometimes to be what you want to be, you must break down what you have and rebuild anew. If this means leaving your family, would you?"

It wasn't the best advice, but she did feel a little bad for her. A rich life wasn't all that it was cracked up to be sometimes and that sometimes hurt people just as much as those who were poor and suffering from standards. But Sherri had no time for other people's problems without a paycheck. Maybe she would do well as a therapist more so.

Sherri comforted the saddened woman before finally saying goodbye once she was okay to walk without losing her balance among her sobs. As the customer left, another customer walked into the lobby.

Her assistant was quick to greet her but paused when he noticed the unusual clothes she wore. Her attire appeared like a maxi dress but was long enough to drag on the floor a few inches and was made from thick, purple tinted fur, real or fake he couldn't tell. Embodied at the belt line at the hips of the dress was a specialized breechcloth spanning down almost the entire length. It had fur tassels on its side and was decorated with the oddest language. The symbols looked different from Cybertronian, broader and spiked. Her upper half was more of a modern evening dress-look but with various necklaces and silver chains that acted as supports around her neck and shoulders.

Armor was intertwined within the fabric, almost like she was a warrior of some type of tribe. Her arms had matching sleeves with similar symbols and jewelry. The skin seen was heavy with unknown tattoos. A hooded coat of a deep violet left only her tattooed lips visible while the rest of her face was shrouded in darkness. He assumed the tattoos spanned up her face as well.

"H-how may I help you, Miss...?"

"Kalypso," she said in a monotone voice. "I seek the medium known as Sherri Williams."

He blinked for a second as it sounded like there was a faint masculine echo among her voice as well as a hiss in a word or two. "Uh, I...um...I can get you an appointment right after 2, Miss Kalypso-"

"I will meet with her now," the voice said, calm but stern.

The assistant quickly nodded his head, fumbling with the phone to call Sherri. "Hey, Sherri, I have a, uh, a customer here that wants to meet with you. I would take this one if I were you."

Sherri's voice seemed to sigh but she answered, "Fine, send them in."

Before the assistant could relay her words, the woman was already walking herself towards the door to Sherri's room. Her hemline snaked across the floorboards, and he swore it almost reminded him of a raccoon's tail with the faint stripe-like details and fur. The assistant blinked before his head started feeling fuzzy and sat down confused.

Sherri had dealt with unruly customers before, those who nearly spat in her face or stormed out. Most she won over by wooing them with happiness. The trick never failed. She quickly tampered with the tarot cards and moved The Magician, The Sun, and The World to the proper places so they would be the ones chosen and be turned upright when presented, giving the best outcomes and hopefully taming the customer's demands. She placed the deck to the side and closed her eyes for a second to prepare herself.

The door opened and she usually expected her assistant to show in the customers. Instead, the door seemed to open eerily, and a hooded figure stood in the doorway. The candles around the room flickered in unison, not something she failed to acknowledge. The stones and drawings around her room reflected the light but seemed to bend it around its physical attributes. The incense faded and the many cleansing scents became dull.

If Sherri didn't know any better, she would have assumed she was dealing with a rich woman, but the clothes didn't reflect wealth, the tattoos didn't express vanity, and the jewelry didn't reflect greed. This was not the typical customer.

"Please sit, my dear."

The expressionless woman with black lipstick and tattoos matching the same color like it melted across her face stood and stared before slowly sitting. Sherri was looking her straight in the eye, or rather at her shadowed hood, but noticed in the corner of her own, Kalypso's arm barely moved. It almost appeared like the seat had slid out without any action, but it could have been her paranoia over how she couldn't read the woman before her plus the angle of her eyesight.

The metal armor among the dress clashed with the wooden chairs but she didn't mind the noise before starting off by saying, "Now, I sense within you that you have come to find clarity in a situation."

Kalypso said nothing like a ghost.

"I think...it has something to do with me," Sherri said. The statement was mundane as it could mean Kalypso sought her out therefore had her involved with something personal. "You seek my assistance in fixing what you have questions about. I don't think I can fix them for you, but I can lead you to fix it yourself."

"I do not need fixing, but you do. Falsifying a power you play with, yet you cannot comprehend, is a grave issue. I don't like people preying on others' feelings with lies, objectifying the abilities of the selected few for their own personal gain."

Sherri frowned. Another disbeliever. Well, she could play that game. This woman will be no different from the others; she would make sure of that. But the term "selected few" was off-putting. Selected as in chosen few to be clairvoyant and all? That was someone's choice. That made no sense. This woman was more wrong than even she was despite most of the customer's rant being technically true.

"Perhaps I could interest you in a palm reading?"

Kalypso extended her hand automatically like a robot and Sherri was quick to trace the lines. But the palm in question had a unique pattern on it. Swirling skin patterns hidden among the tattoos made her look alien...unless this was a Transformer's holoform she was talking to.

Transformers didn't believe in human psychics which was why none of her customers were ever cybernetic. What was considered psychic abilities to the common human was found throughout Transformers as a common thing so there was nothing special about it in their worlds aside from the rarer variants and the powers they had intertwined with said abilities.

She had heard once of a Transformer who could not only talk to spirits but reanimate them, take out people's souls, and control the many variations of afterlife that rivaled Primus' own powers and the Allspark as well. It was a well-known rumor but very few had ever met this Transformer. Another Transformer could manipulate magic and chaos, a select few from their home world had this power that was more in tune with the human psychic abilities than the former example.

But then, if this was a Transformer's holoform, why was she so upset with Sherri's hustle. It wasn't like it was directly affecting her unless...

She still had her fingers on the palm when Kalypso then spoke, "You are afraid. Fear not the unknown but to take what is unknown and use it without permission can be a lifelong mistake. You want what Selina had. I gifted Selina the ability of sight, to see what no one else sees and choose her fate from the decisions laid bare of her ultimate use of them."

Sherri let go of the hand and muttered, "Who the hell are you?"

"For centuries, I gifted all I deemed worthy. To see my gifts squandered, copied, and disgraced made me detest humanity for being so cruel for mere useless paper. A shame really."

"I have to ask you to-"

"And not get to those silly cards of yours? But that's the best part," the woman smiled, showing a hint of silver fangs beneath the black lips.

Sherri felt weird as she reached for the tarot cards. Suddenly, she began to fish for her selected cards in a quick manner but not at her will. Her arms didn't respond to at least wanting to slow down. She slammed three cards down from the pile from the exact positions of her planted cards but to her surprise, they were not at all what she had chosen. The World was supposed to be last, yet it was brought out first on its reversed side. The second card was that of Justice, upright with its sinister sword boasting its truth. And the final card was The Tower upright, a dreaded sign.

Sherri was flabbergasted how nothing she had set up played right. She didn't even know why she dealt the cards without doing it herself. It was like she was under the control of a dark presence. Then she stared at Kalypso frightened.

"Who are you?" She whispered again, this time in a meek tone.

Blaring purple optics suddenly lightened the dark shadow from the hood and narrowed as the candles grew enflamed and the hanging décor around the room rattled. Her tattoos glowed a different shade of violet and her voice echoed like it was coming from the walls themselves. "I am Kalypso of Kanjis, the guardian of divinity and the keeper of enchantment. And you are a thief!"

Wind picked up within the room with charms and dreamcatchers being ripped from the wall and her various sets of cards and paper circling her. Sherri wanted to get up but found herself unable to stand by an invisible weight. It was Kalypso who rose instead, her shadow dwarfing the human. She cowered in her seat as the walls pounded with cracks spreading and an eerie glow peeking through them. The room looked as if it was going to break open at any point. Worse was her tapestries warped in a flash from the normal pictures of witchcraft and magic to twisted, darker versions of themselves similar to the flip of a tarot card.

"You mock the abilities of the few but know not of the burden I bestow, the responsibility that comes with it. When you leave this room, the gift you use to lie will be yours to have, but your dissimulation will be your destruction. And I will be there when your world is nothing more than a sinner's hell."

The tarot cards all floated upward and spread in a circle around Sherri. Some faced upright, the others on their reverse sides but all twenty-two cards showed their darkest prophecies. Rotating around her, she could see the designs on each card glowing a different color in contrast to the vibrant purple everywhere else.

Kalypso's form warped with swirling energy and symbols dancing around her as she grew larger than the room, but the ceiling somehow grew with her. Sherri thought she was shrinking as the walls expanded as well. The form became one of a Transformer, the hood blending into armor that made up the helm. Servos and lower legs of pure black became gradient the farther up the limbs they went to blend with the same purple colors of the rest of the armor. That tattoos of black switched to a light purple even among silver faceplates and abdomen. A thick tail akin to either a fox or a raccoon whipped the mist arising from the ground.

With a roar, the Transformer said with a sarcastic tone, "I see in your future pain and clarity but don't assume one exceeds the other. Your fate will be judged, and your life will be mine!"

Suddenly, with a bright flash and a rumble, Kalypso vanished. The room shattered.

Sherri fell back in her seat on the ground and breathed heavily. When she got up, she expected the room to be destroyed...but it was as neat as she had it right before the Transformer had entered in disguise. Her tarot cards were ready on a side table, the tapestries, drawings and other knick-knacks were untouched, and the candles remained burning with barely a flicker among them.

A knock on the door startled her and she bumped into a desk behind her as her assistant barged through. "Sherri, are you okay?! What was that noise? Did you fall?"

"Did I f-no, I was attacked by that woman you sent in!"

"What woman?"

Sherri huffed and yelled, "Purple dress?! Dark hood?! The one you said wanted to see me immediately?!"

Her assistant looked completely baffled and she thought he was mocking her but noticing how worried he was as well alerted her that he truly didn't remember. Maybe it was in her imagination too. How else could everything be back in place from all that weird wind? It was just a dream...it had to be.

Peeved but scared, she grabbed her stuff and sighed, "Cancel the rest of the day, I need to leave. Something's wrong here."

"Okay? Hope you feel better and be careful."

Sherri almost shoved him out of the way and made a beeline for the door. Outside, she didn't care for the few people who looked her way. She wanted to go as far away from her shop as possible. As she walked to her car and brought out a cigarette, she passed a purple-flamed metal skeleton horse that stared at her dauntingly.

She paused mid-light of the cigarette, coming to a stop just next to her Honda Strike. Slowly, she turned around. Almost dropping her cigarette from her mouth, Sherri gazed up at the horse of purple flames looking like something out of Ghost Rider.

"Excuse me."

She jumped and turned to her car where a partially headless man looked at her casually. "Do you know where Eastbrooke is? I need to tell my wife I found my brother. He was a bit angry at me, but I think we worked things out."

Sherri screamed and peered between him and the horse, both were equally as confused as the other. She opened the door to the car and barely noticed the door went through the headless man. She hit reverse, not caring if she hit the horse and sped off.

A mile down the road and a few text messages from her assistant, she was still rigid and tried rubbing her eyes before the silence grew irritating. Turning on the radio, she smiled a little until she noticed that although she could hear the song, there were whispers among it that didn't match. Maybe it was a recording problem? Switching through the stations, she gasped as the whispers merely changed. She heard a few names, conversations, and one standout voice seemed to be laughing. The white noise was nearly drowning out the song. In a panic, she halted on the side of the road and began hitting the radio until it started breaking, screaming her head off.

"Sherri Williams," a final ghostly growl emitted from the radio before the radio died.

She was frozen at the wheel, sitting there with her car unmoving. The silence was suspicious now. She trusted nothing.

"Sherri," a familiar voice said. She hesitantly peered to her right to her passenger side and saw the same customer she had helped earlier sitting before her. But he was facing forward solemnly before turning to her and revealing a bullet hole in his head and blood down the right side of his face. "You lied to me. You said I would be able to move on, find more in life. But when I got home to our apartment, all I could think of was him and seeing him again when you told me he was with me...hewasn'there."

At his window, the fiery eye of the undead horse loomed while he remained unmoved. Frightened, Sherri stumbled out of her car just before a honk surprised her as a car swerved around her. People in a gas station nearby watched this, pointing at her like she was an idiot. Both the horse and the man were gone.

"Ma'am, are you okay?" A homeless man asked.

"I-I-I don't know I..."

He put a hand on her shoulder and her vision went white. She saw him crossing the road scared, startled by something only to not see a truck and be hit by it, blood on the highway. When her vision went back to normal, she saw the man still right next to her.

"Don't run into the highway!" She said quickly. "Don't go! Don't-"

She started pawing at him and he pushed her back. "What's wrong with you, Ma'am? You need medicine or something?"

"You're in danger! I saw it; I saw you!"

"You must be out of your mind. A looney bin, if they existed, might serve you well."

When Sherri took a step closer, he simply jogged away across the highway...only for the blaring horn of a truck to catch him off guard. Sherri screamed, hopping up and down frantically at the sight. His body rolled several feet before unmoving while the truck swerved to the side.

Another stranger grabbed her arm to try and calm her, but she sensed a dark presence in her. She saw the sincere woman's life through spotted memories. Death, dismemberment, and darkness in a child killer. Crying children from the memories sounded as if they were echoing through time and space. She pushed the woman away with tears in her eyes. The woman who almost appeared like a friendly neighborhood everyday girl looked concerned.

"Stay away from me!"

Several Transformers driving along stopped and shifted into robot mode as they were deducing what happened. A Minicon and a Dinobot appeared near the child killer unaware of the monster they were among instead focusing on her, judging her sudden outburst.

The woman spoke to the side to the few people gathered in a whisper, "I think she's mentally out of it. Can we get an ambulance and the police here?"

The Dinobot nodded and activated his commlink directly to 911. As he did so, Sherri contemplated everything. White noise, seeing ghosts, feeling auras, and seeing the past and future was not at all normal. Her disregarded past friend, Selina, only dealt with ghosts and predictions. This was way over the top but if Kalypso gave her all her mental psychic abilities as punishment, Sherri was indeed feeling the drastic pressure, especially noticing the Minicon next to the Dinobot was not interacting with any of the people around him, a lost soul wandering but self-aware though the damaged shoulder and the missing chest pieces left little to the imagination how they may have died.

More noticeable spirits were intertwining with the living. A girl and a boy both bloody with head wounds and miserable, an elderly Transformer whose optics were very dim, a skeleton dog with blue flames and a woman who looked like she had gone for a swim in an evening dress all stared at her the same as the people alive. The whispers hit like a typhoon, and she covered her ears when they wouldn't shut up. Conflicting energies of death, life, happiness and more made her gain a massive headache. Out of options, she ran.

"Ma'am?!"

Sherri didn't stop, couldn't as the voices followed. A sudden flash and Kalypso abruptly teleported in front of her with a ghostly roar, purples optics blaring. She somehow phased through the being but frantically waved her arms before screaming when she fell out of the blue. She didn't see the right side of the road dropped off to a steep slope and went tumbling down it.

She didn't know how hard she fell, she didn't know how far, but the bushes scraped her body and the rocks jabbed everything they touched. There was a small creek at the bottom and her body hit the edge of it before coming to a stop. She stayed there motionless until suddenly, her eyes opened with a gasp for air.

Sitting up, she groaned and noticed the various marks across her body, many as bloody as ever. Stupid rocks. Sherri tried her best to clean herself off.

"Having fun?"

This time, Sherri merely flinched but was still terrified deep down. To see the same skeleton horse with purple flames and now, to her surprise, Kalypso crouching to look down at her, she was starting to loathe the mysterious Transformer greatly. But now that she had an insight into the real powers few humans had and how daunting they could be daily, she could only bow her head in defeat with tears starting to roll down her cheeks again realizing all the horrors were merely the beginning if she continued to defy Kalypso's will.

"You win. I won't ever touch a tarot card or palm again. I won't ever scam anyone of money again. Just please...please take this away," she sobbed.

Kalypso merely grunted, her chassis littered with decorative jewelry and symbolic, metallic banners swayed with unsettled movements. "Well, I would but it's only been thirty minutes. That and one other reason. I'm surprised, most people last at least three days before they commit suicide or retire from their so-called psychic medium jobs, whatever you call yourselves. You couldn't even last an hour. Oh, I don't really pity you."

Growing angry, Sherri threw a river rock at Kalypso only for it to uselessly bounce off her metal frame. "Shut the fuck up! Here I am telling you what you want to hear, and you have the audacity to berate me still?! What the hell did I do to you?! And why are you suddenly talking to me like we're peers when thirty minutes ago, you were talking down to me like a spirit who wanted to haunt someone because they're a bitch?!"

The horse exchanged glances with Kalypso before the latter smirked, "That's a funny way to describe it. What do you think? When babies are born, all usually have very sensitive senses but as people grow older, they normally lose it. If anything, they can detect weird activity as well as malicious, but a select few I give a portion of my abilities to who can either use it as intended or sit on it. When people make a mockery of my abilities...I tend to get quite pissed hence the dramatic encounter but now that you won't be needing them anymore, I can talk to you casually."

"I never wanted them..."

Kalypso's optics, a normal purple against black eye sockets instead of the full glowing and scary appearance they had in their first meeting, had the same flare of amusement as that god-awful grin on her face. "Oh, but considering your new predicament, you really don't need them."

Sherri frowned wondering what Kalypso meant when she peered back where she fell only to see a body partially in the water with blood flowing down with the river itself. Sherri stared at herself as pale as could be.

"I-I'm..."

"Dead...granted, it happened a bit faster than I wanted but it works out for my brother and me."

The dead woman peered at her arms where the cuts from the rocks were, but they had vanished on her ghost. She no longer felt the pain.

"B-But I-no, that's not fair! I could have done more in my life! I could have-"

"What?" Kalypso sneered, "Go back to conning people? Using your insight to write a book, tell ghost stories-I'm sure those would have been top sellers. Life isn't fair and you of all people should know that. No one can predict anyone's fate; no one ever should, and these abilities are seldom because the responsibilities they carry are only for the strong-willed. You wasted your life, so why should I be fair to you after you hurt other people's lives from lies?"

Sherri was silent as footsteps from behind Kalypso echoed. The man who lost his husband with a bullet now in his head stared at her with utter hatred. Just then, more souls appeared...many of whom had been customers of the past and the few others were people she had seen around town almost daily or often at random but must have known or had some sort of connection with her customers. Most of the people she recognized were immediately noticed to have died horrifically while others seemed untouched, especially children which told her death was not picky on who it took.

"Look at them, Sherri, how many of them did you lie to? How many of them were the results of lies you told others? The cost of abilities such as these are more than you can comprehend. Such fragility in their vulnerable moments, and you took advantage of that when you shouldn't have. My brother has not been happy with what you've done."

Sherri slowly put her hands to her mouth and whimpered, "No, I couldn't have done...this. But wait, you said there were other fakes. What happened to-"

"What do you think?!" Kalypso's optics blared for a second before returning to normal, her tail swinging agitated. "I once didn't care about what they did but humanity doesn't know when to stop, so what happens when too many people get onboard with fraud and the ability to wrongly influence the lives around them? Hmm? You get a mess. Well, I'm tired of looking at it and you, like many others, will pay the price...and you just did."

"Kalypso," a masculine baritone rumbled as the ghosts behind her peered back. Moving shadows were all Sherri could see but a horned figure could be barely identified in the fog rolling in. His dragon-esque form narrowing similar purple optics. "It is time."

The raccoon-like femme snarled but didn't argue with the figure. "It seems my brother and I must carry on. I do hope you enjoy your new life."

That made Sherri freeze. "What?! You're just going to leave me here in Purgatory?! Y-you can't do that!"

Kalypso snickered, "Actually, it's not my choice. My brother can serve or deflect souls, summon or destroy them. He can also alter life and death itself from any afterlife including the Well of the Allspark. I am a sorcerer, a person who can bend the boundaries between both as well, so to speak. I'm merely a messenger, and I love my job. The fact that he agreed to help me hunt down the liars of my gifts to humanity? He loves me...he just won't admit it out loud."

As Sherri was left flabbergasted, Kalypso gave a cruel laugh as the spirits disappeared and her pet horse trotted into the fog alongside her brother who merely turned unceremoniously to leave. She was left distraught and helpless.

"Maybe we'll meet again, maybe we'll meet in an hour or so. I have another target, a prideful woman not far from here," the femme snorted before disappearing when the fog coiled around her before dispersing. Her haunting laugh still echoed among the brush and riverside.

The human, if she could even call herself that anymore, stared blankly around her. Her body remained as dead as could be drowned by the ever-flowing river. Suddenly, a few people from above carefully treaded down the steep slope and went to her body. They didn't see her, and she felt her lip tremble even when she tried to wave a hand in front of their faces to confirm she had passed.

Alone, bitter, and cold, she walked endlessly. She didn't know for how long, but she randomly stumbled upon a psychic hut. Madame Telula's Palm Readings and Psychic Details. Curious, she entered. She forgot now that she was dead, she could faze through doors, but it was a little funny seeing how scared the assistant was when the door swung open. She went through Madame Telula's door without opening it and saw a grieving father.

His son had passed away and here was this woman telling him her son was here, not unlike what Sherri had done. There was no one else in the room but them and her.

"Not everyone stays in limbo because of unfinished business," Kalypso suddenly said, making Sherri scream. Thankfully, none of the others could hear her and apparently, neither could they hear Kalypso. She was in human form again, but the darkness of the hood was no longer hiding the rest of her tattoos nor the gorgeous light purple irises.

"Hello, again," Kalypso smirked briefly before looking at the fake psychic and the man, "I always hate it the most when people lie about loved ones. Death is not a toy; you can't summon someone like dolls to prove a point, aside from me and my brother of course, and you can't tell people about them because a grieving mind is very fragile. You tell a distraught and vulnerable man his husband is on the other side; you think he's going to want to move on? Why would he want to be separated from someone he loves dearly more than any other person on the planet? Grief kills and not many people realize that. In fact, how many of those people can technically be considered murderers despite never raising a finger in the result of the grieving lives gone?"

Sherri was silent for a few minutes watching Madame Telula...watching herself...taking the man's money under a false claim. Then she said, "I didn't know..."

"In fairness, I never expect anyone to. What people do for money now and days. Hurting others hurts the conscience less when at the end of the day you hold what you want, and they don't. Humans have the biggest pride and greed of any species I have encountered. You're still young though, and maybe that's forgivable."

"Do the other fakes wander like I will?"

Kalypso didn't answer the question but instead held up tarot cards, Sherri's pack. "Pick a card, any card."

The human randomly selected one. The World was in the palm of her hand. Then it suddenly changed with a fizzle of energy into Justice. She paused when she realized that's how the cards were suddenly different than in her rigged pack during the reading. Kalypso made them so.

Without even looking at her or her card, Kalypso clicked her tongue. "To you, the world is nothing but a game but to me, it can be so much more. Justice is hardly fair in reality; it can hurt, or it can save. Fate, however, is nothing but a mental construct. Everything happens not for a reason, but because of everyone else around you.

"You walk out in the street with the right of way on the crosswalk and a car flying through the red light hits you. Was it fate or was it because that person was an idiot? You're fighting in a battle and a grenade lands next you thrown by the enemy. Is it fate or did the enemy just decide to throw it just to kill anyone they could? You ask advice from a psychic on how to move on from a traumatic event and the psychic's advice is to lie to you causing you to question yourself. Is it fate you commit suicide or did the psychic in question make your hopes and search for closure feel real for one second only to realize it can and will never happen when you're already miserable? It seems less severe than the other two examples but at the end of the day, someone's still dead and fate is not responsible for other's actions and the reactions that follow. So, who's to blame again?"

"I look forward to seeing you again, my dear," Madame Telula said as her customer shook her hand. He walked through both Sherri and Kalypso with the former shivering unnerved while the other merely raised a brow.

"Poor guy, he's going to move on, thankfully, but he's not going to be the same father he was to his future kids. And those kids will loathe him and then they will rebel against him...and one of them might die from a drug overdose or drunk driving. Haven't figured out which yet, give me a second," Kalypso said casually.

Sherri frowned, "I thought you said you didn't believe in fate?"

The femme snickered, "Because that's not fate. The future is a set path; fate is a multitude of paths that lead to the same fork in the road. The reason why I don't choose fate over future is because fate also has the worst ambiguity between the two. If I tell you you're going to die straight away, that's the future. If I say you're going to die but decide to do a bunch of fancy words and explain the pathway to your death, that's fate. Which one would you rather hear?"

"Well, fate's version because it sounds like I can change it but-"

"But you can't. When I told you that you were going to die, I was describing it as fate. Look where that got you. You panicked; you lived every second scared and unsure of what would become of you each minute because I was ambiguous alongside the abilities I gave you. Would you die today? Would you die in three weeks? A year? Fifty years? You didn't know. I should have just told you 30 minutes and the basics of the powers. You wouldn't have panicked as much as you did because you had a timeframe, you had my abilities to do with as you please for those 30 minutes and even if you still were scared, you would at least know."

Sherri nodded, "We're just an annoyance to you doing stuff like that."

Kalypso shrugged, "It's entertaining sometimes but the point I'm trying to make is these so-called readings of your act...sometimes it's best not to know in any form. If you play with it, it's going to do more harm than you will see because to you, they were just customers the same as Madame Tulula here who also is selling bath salts and incense that has made about a dozen people sick. And if you're curious, yes, bath salts and all that work but you must know what you're doing. You can't just make something random and sell it."

"The story of a fake psychic's life. This isn't a Ghost of Christmas Present thing, so I assume you aren't going to give me a second chance or anything. What should I do?"

At first, Kalypso was neutral but after she stared for a second at her, she shrugged, "How the fuck should I know? You're dead. You can go haunt anyone who wronged you, scare a psychic, protect children, whatever. I don't care what you do. Quick tip: if you're low on energy to move stuff in the land of the living, divert energy from the living. It won't kill them but it's funny as hell to see them act dramatically and faint. The whole world is now yours to roam in. Visit places you never got the chance to, haunt a priest if that's on your bucket list...have fun. Death isn't always a morbid thing, you know. Now, if you would excuse me, I've got another psychic to meet with."

Kalypso stepped through the door and vanished again. Sherri was stuck again alone, but this time she had a bit of a smile at the irony of it all. It was a nightmare previously but, in a way, it was a future that maybe wouldn't be bad after all.

Her growing laughter threatened tears as she moved backwards stumbling. Tarot cards, tapestries, and the décor around the room shifted with her energy growing. Maybe she was a fuck up in the land of the living but here, she would make it right.

The door to the room opened and the assistant of Madame Tulula's peaked into the room concerned. When nothing was seen, he frowned while Sherri gained a wicked idea. If she was going to be here forever, she would heed Kalypso's advice. What else did she have to live for?

AN: Before anyone gets angry, I'm not bashing on psychics...only fake ones. I believe there are real psychics among us but the abilities are seldom. How to tell the real deal from the fakes who only say what you want to hear is harder now and days with all the access to technology and can look up anything you post to "read" you.