Disclaimer: Don't own it.

Quote of the Update: America's one of the finest countries anyone ever stole.—Bobcat Goldthwait

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A slight haze drifted over Venice. Anyone who might have, by some miracle, seen the haze that was floating through the skies probably would have dismissed it as a trick of the sun, as humans' minds are very literal and hardly thing anything unnatural about any kind of occurrence such as this one. Of course, the haze was not a trick of the light, but something much more powerful and complex.

The haze drifted over to a scene in the middle of a road. Five teens stood hunched over an unconscious body, trying to get the person to respond. Unfortunately, no change came over the person, and the haze knew why. Suddenly, one of the teens got up and ran in the other direction, probably heading to find an ambulance. The haze knew, however, that a doctor would be of no help in the situation.

The haze flew in lower until it was directly over the body. A translucent hand suddenly appeared and placed itself on the boy's forehead. A faint, pink aura surrounded him for several seconds, then the hand drew away and the aura disappeared. When the young teen began to stir slightly, the haze flew a great distance, then landed on a cobbled road. The haze began to diminish, and in its place stood a girl who looked to be in her early 20's. She wore a necklace with only one word scripted on it.

And that word was Adriana.

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Kai could feel himself being slowly pulled back into consciousness. He didn't recall passing out, and couldn't really think of a reason for why he would. He felt perfectly fine, albeit a little tired, but that was nothing to black out from. When he finally did remember what had happened, his breath caught in his throat.

Great. Just great.

They had been sightseeing, when all of a sudden he had begun to feel unusually sick. Then, he had passed out…In front of everyone. Perfect. Now he was going to be bombarded with questions and concerns and, worst of all, pity. Kai decided that the best thing to do in this kind of situation was just to wake up, get on your feet, and pretend like to whole thing had never happened.

Kai opened his eyes to see more concerned faces standing over him than he was used to seeing. The first face he saw was Rei's, whose eyes widened when he saw him.

"Hey guys! He's awake!"

Kai cringed at the shout that had been sounded way too close to his face. Kai didn't wait for the stampede of footsteps to get any closer to him before abruptly standing up.

"Kai, what are you doing?! You shouldn't be standing up!" scolded Rei.

"Why the hell not?"

"You just passed out cold in the middle of the street. Normal people don't just stand up and pretend like nothing's wrong when something like that happens."

"Rei, nothing is wrong with me, so drop it." Without even waiting for him to reply, Kai began walking off towards the hotel, leaving a very confused group of teens behind him.

"What just happened?" Lee asked.

Rei stared at Kai's back for a moment. There didn't appear to be anything wrong with him. But he had just passed out with no warning. That usually didn't signal that a person was okay. Then again, he was only out for about a minute…It was all very confusing.

"I'm not sure," he finally answered.

"I bet this has something to do with that Trista chick!" Tyson declared. "Ever since we met her, weird things have been popping out of nowhere."

"Tyson, weird things always pop out of nowhere when it comes to Kai. It's a regular occurrence," Rei pointed out.

"Yeah, but nothing like this!"

"Tyson does have a point. We've dealt with some pretty strange things before, but I'd have to say that, from what I've heard, this has to be the strangest thing yet," agreed Lee.

"Meanwhile," Mariah broke in, "we're all standing in the middle of the street, talking openly about strange phenomena, and people are starting to stare. Maybe we should just go back to the hotel and think about all this later. It's giving me a headache anyway."

"Anything that you have to think about for more than five minutes gives you a headache, Mariah," teased Lee.

"Will you shut up!"

"Ok, that's enough," said Rei loudly. "We should be getting back anyway. It's getting late." That was when all of them noticed that the stars were beginning to come out and the sky was growing darker. They nodded in silent agreement and headed in the same direction Kai had only minutes earlier.

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Adriana made her way silently and gracefully across Poveglia, despite the fact that she was completely drained. Just because she was dead didn't mean that using the powers that one received after death wasn't tiring. It had been a difficult job, healing the boy. Mara and Marietta had nearly drained him of his entire life force. But she refused to let one of her lineage fall because of this wicked place, as she had so many years ago.

No doubt the twins would be quite upset with her. Tusya would be even more upset, putting it lightly. No one was to leave the island without his consent, and he had made it perfectly clear that those who did would be punished. She wasn't extremely worried about it, though. She had saved the life of the human that he had ordered to this very island himself. If anything, he would be angry at Mara and Marietta for not being able to control themselves from not only leaving the island, but from almost stealing another life, and one that Tusya did not want stolen.

Adriana scowled. Every spirit on this island could go to hell, for all she cared. The haunting memory of what had happened here while they were still alive had caused most of them to become wicked and malicious. Only a few still held their dignity, even in death. She was sick of this place, and wished to just pass on normally like everyone else did when they died, instead of having to be cursed with remaining in the living world, even though she was no longer among the living.

Adriana's thoughts wandered back to Tusya. What was he planning anyway? And why did he want those humans here? She had a bad feeling about the whole affair, and was certain she was going to more involved in this than she already was. It was going to be a long next couple of weeks…

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Two days later

Things had gotten slightly back to normal for the six teens over the course of two days. Well, as close to normal as you can get when you're being sent to a haunted island by a video tape sent through the mail. None of them were even aware till this experience that ghosts—or whatever was on that crazy island—could send things by mail. Who does that anyway? It was all very creepy…But, of course, everyone had already established the fact that this whole experience was altogether strange, and were now focusing on the problem at hand, which was just getting home alive.

Already things had started happening, beginning with Kai passing out in the middle of the street two days ago, and then getting back up a minute after. At first the team thought that he was just playing the situation off like it was totally fine, and he was totally fine, even though he wasn't. He had certainly done it before. But after a couple of days passed by, Kai really did seem to be fine. Which was even weirder. People don't just pass out for no reason. They had nothing to hold against him, though, so the teens had decided to let it go.

Trista had been mysteriously missing since they arrived in Italy, which was perfectly fine with the group. She was creepy…Very creepy. They were starting to suspect that she was one of the undead, like a vampire, or something. She certainly looked like one.

Light filtered through the curtains in the hotel rooms, illuminating beds that still held their occupants, even though the ticking bedside clocks now read 11:43. Everyone was still sleeping, except for Kai, who had wandered off somewhere at five in the morning. The others weren't even sure that he had gone to bed that night, which he probably hadn't.

Trista walked into the room, treading carefully on the floor as it was littered with trash and snoring bodies. It looked to her that they had thrown their own little mini rave in the room last night, considering that everyone had their own room, but had decided to all (save Kai and that pink-haired girl) to pass out on the floor in one room together, among mounds of pop bottles and garbage. Trista wrinkled her nose. It figured that Tusya would assign her the most disgusting humans he could find. He only wanted one of them, so why did he insist on having him drag his grotesque little friends with him?

'Lazy pigs,' she thought as she surveyed the room. She needed to wake them up, but didn't particularly feel like going around to each person and shaking them awake. This was one of the few times she was allowed a physical body, and she didn't want to contract a disease by having to touch them. Luckily, she had come prepared.

Trista pulled a whistle out of her pocket. Cliché? Yes, but affective. She blew into it lightly, causing a high pitched shriek to barrel out of the tiny object. Those who had actually fallen asleep on beds were now on the floor with everyone else. Once she was sure that everyone was awake (signaled to her by the various groans and cursing), she pocketed the whistle and walked over to the window, grabbed the curtains, and flung them wide open. Light poured into the room. Various people around the room who were trying to stand up and get dressed were now on the floor again.

Once everyone's eyes had adjusted to the hated light, they searched around the room for the person who had woken them up so crudely. One boy who she was pretty sure was named Tyson looked at her angrily.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

"It is time to wake up," she answered, her voice laced with her smooth Italian accent. "You have slept long enough. We have things to do."

"I thought you said we could do what we wanted for the next couple days," pointed out the blonde boy called Max, his voice groggy and his faced scrunched up against the light.

"My employer has changed his mind. He wants your feet on Poveglia's soil tonight. Don't worry about luggage, you wont have any use for it there."

Lee thought of something. "Hold on a sec. Where have you been since we got here? We haven't even heard from you in almost three days."

Trista ignored the question, already directing her course out of the dumping ground that the hotel room had been transformed into.

"Freak," Tyson muttered under his breath.

"Fat, unruly pig," she served back.

Tyson just stared with his mouth open as she disappeared from sight, the others doing their best to stifle their laughter.

"Shut up."

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Kai leaned on a bridge in a deserted part of the city, his eyes scanning over the Adriatic Sea. His eyes were focused on the ships entering and leaving the city, but his mind was elsewhere. The entire situation that he now found himself in was just plain strange, and, even though he wouldn't admit it out loud, what had happened that day he had passed out severely confused him. Before he had fallen unconscious, he had felt totally drained and completely exhausted. But when he awoke, he felt perfectly fine, as though nothing had even happened. Which didn't make any sense. From what the others had told him, he had only been out for a couple of minutes. That wasn't nearly enough time to replenish the energy he had lost.

Kai scowled, and kicked a rock into the water, watching it fall into the sea with a 'plunk', rippling the still water. He hated feeling as though he was being kept out of the loop. He hated not knowing what was going on around him. He was starting to think he shouldn't have even come in the first place. And he wouldn't have, either, if he hadn't suspected that somehow his grandfather had something to do with this. That theory still hadn't been cleared, but he was starting to think that this situation had come from something else.

Whoever had brought them here, he just hoped that they could get this trip done and over with as soon as possible. Something just wasn't right, and it kept nagging at him constantly. There was just something completely…off about everything that had happened. And there was defiantly something off about that Trista girl.

"Kai!"

Kai looked up from the water, but didn't see anyone. Not that he needed to. He knew who that voice belonged to.

He sighed. Oh well. He knew the silence wouldn't last forever.

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"Kai!" Tyson yelled again, hoping to get a response, but not really expecting one. Kai usually just ignored you and let you come to him. So now they had to go looking all over Venice for him, a city that they had no experience in. Tyson groaned. 'And he thinks I'm annoying.'

"We've looked everywhere," whined Max. "I'm getting tired."

"So is everyone else Max, but we need to find Kai and tell him about the change in plans before tonight," explained Rei.

"But Rei, it's not even one in the afternoon, and we've been searching forever."

"Might as well get a head start. You know how hard Kai is to find when he doesn't want to be found."

"I say we just go home and leave him here," grumbled Tyson.

"Knock it off, all of you. Your complaining isn't doing anything but giving me a headache, ok? We have to go look for Kai sometime today; that's not going to change. So just shut up for thirty minutes so we can get it over with!" Lee finally yelled.

Mariah looked up at her brother. "God Lee, calm down. You don't have to get angry."

"Um, guys?" said Rei.

"Look, I'm sorry, ok? You guys are just really annoying."

"Guys."

"Well, if we annoy you so much then maybe you shouldn't have come," Tyson shot back.

"Guys!"

"Yes, what is it Rei?!" asked Lee.

Rei pointed to his left. "He's right there."

They all followed Rei's finger and sure enough, Kai was standing on a nearby bridge, watching them with mild disinterest.

"Kai, if you were there the whole time, why didn't you say anything?!" yelled Tyson, walking up to where Kai was standing.

"I guess I didn't feel the need."

Tyson was about to throw something back, when Rei stopped him. "Kai, Trista says we have to be at Poveglia by tonight."

Kai shrugged. "Whatever. At least we'll be getting this over with sooner." He put his hands in his pockets and walked past them before they could say anything, heading back in the direction they had come from. They watched him go, then Tyson scowled.

"I hate it when he does that!"

"Does what? Ignore you?" asked Lee.

"No! Well, yeah. But that's not what I meant! I hate it when he says something and just walks away before we can even answer. He doesn't even wait for us to walk with him! He's either behind, or in front. Never with us. Like we're not even his friends, or something. Or we're not worth his time."

"Kai's just independent, Tyson, that's all. He likes to do things alone and he likes to be in control of his own actions. It's just the way he is," explained Rei.

"Yeah, well I think he needs a serious attitude check. He's disrespectful to everyone, even people who actually attempt to be nice to him!" Tyson walked away in the opposite direction Kai had gone in a huff.

"Tyson, what are you doing?" asked Max.

"If he wants to be alone, let him be alone! I'm not going to go look for him anymore, I'm not gonna wait for him anymore, and I'm not going to follow him around everywhere, just 'cause he decides to leave!" he yelled, his pace never faltering.

Rei sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair. "I don't know if those two will ever get along."

"Just forget about it. Let's go do something before it gets dark. Or before Tyson and Kai find each other and Tyson decides to start a fight," suggested Mariah.

They all silently agreed and left to go spend what would be their last day in the normal world.

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A dark figure leaned back it his chair, laughing softly.

"Soon Kai. Soon."

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Yeah I know. Considering the fact that I made you guys wait a whole year for this the length of this chapter totally sucks, but it would have been weird to go any further. I mean, at least I updated, right? (receives lots of angry glares) Ahem. Well.

No one has to worry about the next update being this long, because now I have the plot set up more, so it should be easier to go from here. I also recommend that you read the story over, even if you just kinda skim, because I even had to before I started to right this.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it! Even if it is horrendously short…