Me: All right, guys. Here comes the next chapter, and it only took three days rather than four days. I'm glad that I'm able to get this thing rolling.

Leland: Oh yeah, Snow, didn't you have another announcement to make?

Me: Yeah. I'm writing a Hunger Games fanfiction, and I am in desperate need of characters. I'm hoping that you guys are willing to give me some characters, because it's been several days and I have only gotten a few of the 24 I need. If you'd like to PM me a character, using the form in "Elements: The 76th Hunger Games", I'd love you a lot.

Leland: Also, we got no reviews on the last chapter. We really want to know what you guys think of this story, but we can't know unless you give us a review. But, with that, let's get this show on the road!

LELAND'S POV

Man, this hurts.

The first thing I became aware of when I regained consciousness was just how much pain I was in. My head was killing me, for one. It felt as though a tiny man with a sledgehammer was beating my skull from the inside, like my head was going to explode.

Beyond that, my legs were aching as though I'd just run several miles at full tilt. And, really, I would not have been surprised if that were the case.

Open your eyes, Leland. Open your eyes, and don't forget to breathe.

That was what I always told myself when I was in pain and had my eyes closed. I needed to see where I was, so that I could decide on a course of action.

Getting my peepers open again was an uphill battle, to say the very least. For one, it was extremely difficult to get rid of the insane amount of pain. Also, I just didn't want to think about what might have happened. I could be in my own bed again, but I just felt so confused.

What happened to me? I thought, not remembering how I had lost consciousness.

Finally, I was able to see again. And then, I saw where I was.

This was a bedroom, but it wasn't my own bedroom. The walls were a vivid shade of yellow, which my Zoroark eyes could tell was #F4CA32, a shade of Saffron. I was lying on a bed similar in size to my own.

Tearing off the blankets, I tried to get to my feet. I wanted to get out of this mysterious room, find out where I was, and find out what had happened to me.

Big mistake.

As soon as my feet touched the ground, I collapsed, feeling as though I had just gotten off a merry-go-round that had been spinning at thrice the usual speed. I felt sick rising in the back of my throat, and I instinctively knew that I was going to vomit.

Don't want to puke on the rug here, I thought to myself. You have to get to the toilet to throw up.

I managed to make it there,, but it was quite difficult. Several times, I had to stop and rest, although I knew that I would feel better once I had thrown up. It was the only way to get rid of this feeling, whatever it was.

Leaning over the bowl, I retched, emptying the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I had to avoid sitting on my ponytail, but that wasn't too difficult. Everything felt harder as a Zoroark, including vomiting.

I puked my guts out. When I thought I was done, I managed to crawl weakly back to bed. It was only once I sat back down that I realized what had happened.

I must have been given some sort of tranquilizer back at my house, which was why I had passed out. That would also explain the blinder of a headache I had, which had not gotten any better after I'd thrown up. I was still wondering if i was having an aneurysm of something; I was in that much pain. I'd never experienced too much physical pain in my life, but this was definitely one of the worst instances of it.

Of course, since this wasn't my ordinary room, it stood to reason that I had been out for some time. Otherwise, my captors, whoever they were, would not have had enough time to take me to this location, wherever it was. At the moment, I really didn't care where I was; I cared more how I was going to get out of here.

And I began to despair, because I knew that there was probably no easy way out for me. I would need to use my mind in order to find a way, which kind of sucked, because my mind wasn't working very well for me at the moment. It felt sluggish, as though I was underwater.

Just then, there was a knock on the door. "Open up" I said as strongly as I could, although that wasn't saying very much at all.

In came the same young man I had seen before I'd been knocked out. He was wearing a business suit, and so he looked pretty well-dressed in comparison to me. I hadn't checked my reflection, but I could imagine that I looked pretty tired in spite of having slept for a long time.

What was his name again?

"Hello, Leland Parsons. I see that you are finally awake".

I didn't want to answer. I was feeling quite a lot of animosity towards the man at the moment, considering that he'd just drugged me and sent me somewhere else without my consent.

"What's your name again?" I asked as calmly as I could. I saw that he was carrying saltine crackers on a plate and a bottle of water, presumably for me.

"Colin" he said. "I'm sorry that we had to take you away yesterday like that. But you weren't cooperating. You were never going to cooperate, so I'm afraid that we had to do that to you".

"Yesterday?" I exclaimed. "How long have I been out?"

"It's almost noon on Tuesday, June nineteenth" Colin told me. "So...about twenty hours".

Twenty hours? I thought. That's a long time.

"Man, must be a strong drug" was what I said in response. "If it can put me out for twenty hours".

"Yeah, it did" he replied. "In any case...you probably want to know where you are and what we have done. You also most likely want to know more about us".

I nodded, the very action hurting my head.

"First", Colin said, "I do have a question. Did you throw up earlier?"

I nodded again.

"You should probably have some saltines and water, wash the taste out of your mouth. Then, I'll tell you some more".

Colin watched as I slowly nibbled on a few crackers. I was just waiting for him to tell me what was going on. The way I saw things, I'd just been kidnapped and sent here against my will. The way he saw it, things could be completely different.

Once I was done, he said, "Okay. Leland, we may have told you this before, but we are Team Atomic".

"I seem to remember that" I told him. "What are you guys playing at?"

"Well", he said, "you have to remember that Team Rocket never stopped trying to get to you. Even now, they would love nothing more than to be able to experiment on you more. Imagine being strapped to a treadmill, forced to run until you passed out. Imagine being subjected to electric shocks until they found out what they wanted to know".

Neither of those sounded like particularly pleasant possibilities. That didn't change the fact, however, that I very much wanted to know what it was about the cure.

That was one of the things I was remembering after I came to. Colin had mentioned that there was a cure for my current state, if only they figured out how to make it. I was personally quite impatient to find out; I was begging to know. I was sick of being a Zoroark.

"You said that there was a cure for my current state" I said. "Were you just playing with me there? Or is there really a way out of this?"

"There is a way" he replied. "At least, we desperately hope there is. While you were asleep, we took some blood from you. We're going to have to "train" it into thinking that it's human blood, while still working with your body".

This sounded like a foreign language to me. When Team Rocket had been turning me into a Zoroark earlier, "intravenously" was probably the most advanced word I'd recognized. It wasn't like I'd grown up around a ton of hospitals, laboratories, or other locations where science was practiced.

"So you're going to train this blood into thinking it's human blood? How does that even work, exactly?"

None of this was making any sense to me. Training blood into thinking that it was a human's…

"Shouldn't you be trying to get the human blood to think it's a Zoroark's?" I asked. "And mix it with some other things?"

"Yeah...that would make more sense" Colin replied.

No matter what, I wanted to turn back into a human. I didn't care what it required, but if the people here were that confused, to the point where I was making more sense than them ...well, let's just say that I wasn't too confident in their ability to cure me of this transformation. I really would have preferred someone more scientifically adept.

For a while, we just sat there, neither of us talking very much. Eventually, Colin said, "We're going to continue to work on the cure. But I'm not going to sugarcoat things, Leland. It's not going to be easy. You might be stuck as a Zoroark for some time".

I didn't want to ask what constituted some time. I was a little afraid of that. It could be hours, days, weeks, months, or years. No matter what, I just wanted to be free of this curse.

"Is there anything else you want to know?" the young man asked me. "I'm terribly sorry that we just had to take you from your home like that, but it was partly for your own protection. You may not like it this way, but it's kind of what we had to do".

You may not like it this way, but it's kind of what we had to do.

If he was trying to apologize, that was quite possibly the most pathetic way in which he could have done it. I felt like punishing him, but I felt almost as though my arms were pinned to the bed. By now I was lying in it, because I had started to feel quite tired again.

"What were you guys even thinking?" I asked him. "Why did it make sense to just take me from there? I have a life too, you know!"

"Well, that's too bad" Colin replied. "In order to live your life the way you truly want to, as a human rather than a Zoroark, you're going to have to go along with us for now. We're the only ones who have the way to the cure".

"You just said that you didn't" I replied. "You just told me that you were looking for a cure right now".

"We could have one very soon indeed, Leland Parsons" Colin said. "All you have to do is trust us, and we will be able to get it.

"And if I don't trust you?" I asked him. "After all, I am putting quite a lot of faith in you to do this".

"Well, then you have no chance to get back to normal" he replied. "I mean, the old normal. If you are fine with this new normal, props to you for being able to deal with the circumstances".

That was the thing: I wasn't sure that I was able to deal with the circumstances being what they were. Life at school had become almost unbearable, and my home life hadn't been a hell of a lot better. If I was able to turn back into a human, that would solve many of my problems, but not all of them.

"Where are we?" I asked. "I mean, where in the country?"

"Do you really want to know that, Leland Parsons? I'm not sure that you do".

That's one thing that makes me angry that I hadn't mentioned before. One thing I absolutely despise is being told that I don't think the way I actually do. For this man to pretend that I didn't really want to know where I was being held...yeah, that made me pretty angry.

"I do" I replied. "You know that I do. So, please tell me, or I'll...do a Night Slash on you". Of course, I was bluffing; I very much doubted whether I could use that move in my current condition.

"Oooh, a feisty one" Colin said. "Well, I'll come back to bring you dinner later. But for now, you're on your own. We're not going to let you out until we've found a cure".

"Do you really need me for the cure, though?" I asked him. "The way you're saying things, it really sounds like you don't. If you just let me go, then things would be fine. Send the cure to a local hospital or something, and I'll pick it up and take it".

"There is just one problem with that, Leland" the Team Atomic grunt replied. "And it's…".

"What sort of problem could there be, Colin?" I asked, with as much vitriol as I could muster.

"You're not safe outside the confines of this place" he told me. "If you leave, there is a very strong possibility, I don't know how much, that you could be caught by Team Rocket again. If they find you again, I shudder to think what experiments they might perform on you. They could very well kill you if you went through too much".

That wasn't a pleasant thought at all; I really would rather not get captured by Team Rocket, but, at the same time, how much better would it be to be trapped in this room indefinitely, with no knowledge of what was going on in the outside world?

"I'll leave you with that, Leland" Colin said. "You should probably get some more rest, at least until you start feeling better again. In the morning, we're going to ask you some more questions, which might help us find some method of curing you".

The grunt walked back through the door, and I took that as a cue to try to get back to sleep. It was a lot harder than I had thought it would be; I'd been feeling quite exhausted after waking up from the tranquilizer, and still felt pretty tired even now.

But, eventually, I managed it. And, let me tell you, that darkness was deeply relieving. Far better darkness than the confusing waking world.

SARAH'S POV

I'd woken up that morning, and almost immediately felt pretty horrible. It hadn't been that long until I had run into the bathroom to throw up. Apparently a side effect of the tranquilizer darts was nausea and/or vomiting, something that I wished I'd been told beforehand, as I almost hadn't made it to the toilet.

In any case...on Monday, around lunchtime, when Leland's mother was away, that was when they had come for me. I hadn't been able to do anything to prevent Team Atomic from taking me away, and that made me pretty mad. Had I been able to get away, I could have continued hanging out with Leland.

This might surprise you, but I was actually quite a fan of the guy. The more I got to know him, the more I liked him. I didn't care that I'd never actually seen his true form; I liked what I saw, and he was quite handsome as well.

In any case...try as I might, I couldn't help but be overpowered by the members of Team Atomic that had come to the house. I'd been shot with a tranquilizer, and pretty much just passed out.

And then I'd woken up here. I'd read about a lot of different fictional characters getting knocked out by gas, a dart, or a blow to the head, and waking up someplace unfamiliar. However, this was actually happening to me right now. Once you were actually experiencing it...yeah, it was quite something.

After I'd thrown up everything in my stomach, I'd headed back to my bed. There, the Team Atomic grunt who had captured me had explained that it was now the following morning, and that I'd been taken there for two purposes; my own protection, and the possibility that they would need me to be present to help find a cure for what was ailing us. Which was something that was highly welcome (the possibility for a cure, not the part about being cooped up), but I still wanted to know exactly when I was going to be out of here.

When I didn't get a definitive answer for that, I had a hard time not despairing. The idea of being trapped here for days, weeks even, sent a chill down my spinal cord. I just couldn't imagine it; I was already hating this place, with its bright yellow walls that made me feel even more nauseous than I was already.

I wanted to get out of there. And, that night, I tried to do just that.

The rest of the day hadn't been fun. The more they tried to get me to eat, the less I wanted to. Ultimately, they allowed me to go without dinner, but that food looked absolutely disgusting. It looked like hospital food, something that nobody in their right mind would ever choose to eat.

You might call me a picky eater for that, and it's easy to see why. After all, the argument could be made that I needed as much strength as I could possibly get for what I was going to try to do. In order to get that strength, I would need to eat.

Part of the reason that I didn't eat anything was that, because it was so disgusting, I was slightly afraid that I might just end up throwing it back up. That wasn't a risk I was willing to take, even though it can be argued that it was a silly fear of mine. I still worried that it might happen.

In any case, I waited until I was sure every last grunt was asleep before I crept out of my room. For whatever reason, Team Atomic did not lock the doors of their rooms, so it was possible for me to get out of there by simply opening it. Once I had done that, I was out in the open.

I saw that I was in a hallway, and that the lights were off. I had one goal in my mind; to locate Leland Parsons and get the hell out of there. I didn't want to be in the headquarters of Team Atomic any longer than I had to.

Faced with the decision as to whether I would turn left or right, I decided to turn left and see where that led me. Would it lead to Leland's room, wherever he was being kept?

That was another thing that the grunt had told me. Leland Parsons was also being held here, for the same reasons as me. If I was able to find him, that meant that I could very possibly be able to escape.

But, the more I thought about it, the more hopeless things seemed.

If we managed to escape from Team Atomic, that still meant that we needed to find some other way to cure this transformation. The team might not be able to do it for us without our help.

But the fact remained: Did I really want their help? After all, they'd captured both me and Leland against our will. Even though I'd only known the Zoroark boy for three days, I cared very much what happened to him, and I knew that he wanted to change back into a human as soon as possible.

Was Team Atomic really the best route to doing that?

In any case, I found a nearby door, and I tried to open it. To my surprise, it wasn't locked. I walked in, preparing myself for what was on the other side.

I wasn't disappointed. A Zoroark was sleeping on a bed, and the walls, even though it was dark in there, were clearly the same sickly yellow color.

"Leland?" I asked. The Zoroark didn't stir at the sound of what I thought was his name.

I walked on over to his bedside and tapped him on the shoulder. His eyes fluttered open, and he said, "Wassup? Why'd you wake me?"

"Are you Leland Parsons?" I asked him.

"Yes" he replied. "Are you Sarah Mana?"

I nodded. "I came here, because we need to get out of here. I don't trust these people at all. They don't have our best interests at heart. Is this really the only way that we can get cured?"

Leland shrugged. "I really don't know. But how are we going to escape?"

"It's nighttime" I said. "The grunts will all be asleep by now. If there are any guards, I think we can skirt our way around them. If not...well, hopefully they can find a cure soon, so that they'll let us out anyway".

"You sound incredibly optimistic about this whole thing, Sarah" Leland replied. "Me personally, I don't know if we should even try to escape. If we get caught, I'm not so sure that they'll be happy to find a cure for us".

I didn't know what to say to that. Eventually, however, I did settle on something. I hated that it sounded so much like a threat, and I felt like a despicable human being for it, but I did think it would be effective.

"No matter what", I said to Leland, "I'm leaving. You can come with me if you want, or you can stay here. But, if you decide to stay here, you might never find your way back to me again".

That seemed to do it for him. "I'm going to go with you" he said. "You're right; we should get the hell out of here".

I helped him get out of bed, and then we started running out of there.

"Wait...which way do we go?" Leland asked.

I realized that I had no answer to that question, and the reason for that was fairly simple; I hadn't given it much thought. I'd gotten tunnel vision at the very thought of just being able to get out, to the point that I didn't realize how we were going to get out.

"Should we try that doorway there?" I asked Leland. He was leaning against me, and I realized that he must have been feeling fairly weak. Clearly, the time he had spent in that room had not helped him in his efforts to stay strong enough to escape.

"Yes" he said, nodding. "Let's just get out of here".

As soon as we went through the doorway, we entered an even darker area. I wasn't sure exactly where we were; in fact, I had no idea at all.

The area was almost entirely pitch-black, except for the occasional area where the sides of the walls (yes, there were a lot of walls, like a maze) lit up. It looked, for all intents and purposes, like a laser tag arena.

I wondered what our strategy should be. Should we try random pathways, or should we look for a specific pattern? The way it was right now, there was no real way to tell how to get to the end of this maze. It was so confusing that I felt like yelling in frustration and banging on the walls, but I knew that would get us nowhere. If anything, that would only lead to more frustration.

Somehow, we worked out a strategy. Every time we took a left, we would take a right directly after that. We ran into a couple dead ends, but we eventually reached a ramp.

And, at the top of the ramp, I saw that the ramp opened onto the stars.

We'd done it.