The Disappearance

"And that means that's the third disappearance within this month."The news caster was finishing up. "If you have any information, police are encouraging you to report it to them. Now to the weather with Neal Simons."
Quinn turned off the T.V.
"Probably just some pedophile." He muttered to himself.
Just then, his phone rang.
"Hello?" Quinn asked, picking it up.
"Hey Quinn!" A voice from the other end said happily.
"What do you want Jacob?" Quinn questioned.
"I was wondering if you'd want to go to that new skate park." Jacob replied. "Do you?"
"Sure!" Quinn answered. "I've been planning on going there for a few days now."
"Ok." Jacob said about to hang up. "See you there."

Quinn went into his garage and grabbed his skateboard and helmet.
Since the skate park was far away, he strapped his board onto his bike and rode to the park on that.
After a few minutes of riding, Quinn finally made it to the skate park.
He saw Jacob waiting for him at the entrance.
"We're lucky." He said as Quinn walked up. "Big group of kids just left, so we have it all to ourselves."
"Great." Quinn replied. "Let's go in."

"Wait…" Jacob said, staring into the distance. "I think I see something. Common."
Leaving his stuff at the entrance, Quinn followed Jacob into the woods that surrounded the park.
"There it is again!" Jacob yelled, now running towards whatever he saw.
"Jake, wait up!" Quinn yelled, trying to catch up from Jacob's quick start.

Jacob suddenly came to a stop.
Quinn, still running, bumped into him.
Looking around, he noticed they were deep in the woods.
"Jake, where are we?" Quinn asked, nervously.
Instead of answering, Jacob bent down and picked up a large stick.
"Jake, what are you doing?" Quinn asked suspiciously.
Jacob suddenly turned around and whacked Quinn with the stick, knocking him out cold.

When Quinn finally woke up again, he noticed that he couldn't see anything!
And that he was tied to something.
He tried to scream for help, but realized that he was muffled too.
"Quiet kid!" A voice in the room yelled. "You're annoying us."
"Think it's time to call their house?" Another voice asked.
"Yeah." The first one replied. "Go to the pay phone."
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"I'm sorry Ma'am." I told her, trying to calm her down. "We have no clue how long the search will go on for."
She was starting to calm down, but was still sobbing wildly.
"Sir." The policeman behind me said. "We got reports from the people in town like you asked. They claim the last place the boy was seen was heading into the woods near the park alone."
"Thank you." I replied.
He nodded, and then walked off to give more orders to the other cops.

Just then, the phone rang.
The mother tried to answer it, but I stopped her.
I quickly plugged in a recording device, and picked up the receiver.
"Who is this?" I demanded.
The voice on the other end was silent for a moment before saying "You're not the mother."
"I'm the father." I made up on the spot.
The voice was silent again, and then said "No you're not."
I gasped.
That meant that if this was a kidnapping, it might have been planned.
"You're very smart." I responded. "I'm her representative. You will answer to me, not the parents."
Once again, silence.
"Very well." The voice finally answered. "We have the boy."
It was official, this was a kidnapping.
Either that or a very sick joke.
"We'll return him safely, if you pay $10,000." The voice offered.
"Very well." I lied. "We'll pay you when we get the money."
Truth is, we can't negotiate until we determine it's the last and only option.
"Better pay up within three days, or you'll never see the kid again." The voice said, right before hanging up.
"Officers!" I yelled. "Trace that phone call!"
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It has been three days since Quinn had been captured.
"Sorry kid." The voice he'd come to recognize said. "It's been three days, your parents haven't paid, and those cops weren't able to trace use with that payphone. It's time."
At that statement, Quinn began to freak out.

The two kidnappers untied him, only to retie his hands again.
Quinn struggled, but his efforts failed.
They dragged him into another room, and sat him down in a hard metal chair.
Then they finally undid the blindfolds.

Quinn saw two men, around their mid-twenties.
"Ok, kid." One of the men said, pulling out a small syringe. "You might feel a small twinge of pain, then nothing at all."
Quinn began panicking again, thinking they were going to give him a lethal injection.
However, having no way to prevent it, the man jabbed his arm with the needle.

Quinn began to feel really woozy after the liquid was put into his blood stream.
He was too tired to panic about what he was seeing.
The two men turned into werewolf-like creatures with long, puffy red hair.
Quinn then collapsed into a deep sleep.
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The phone rang again for the first time in a day.
After plugging in the recording device again, I picked up the phone.
"Is this the kidnapper again." I asked.
"Oh come now, detective. You know that we don't like that term."The voice then turned serious."We requested that you give us the money in three days. Time's up."
"We just need some more time!" I pleaded.
"No dice, Mr. Detective." The voice answered. "You'll never see the boy again."
I was then met with the beeping that sounded when the call disconnected.
"I'm not going to give up on this." I vowed.
----------------------------
Waking up again, Quinn noticed that he was untied.
He also felt really weird.
Picking himself off of the floor, he accidentally caught a glimpse at his arm.
He gasped and fell down again as he saw dark grey fur growing on it.
Quickly picking himself up once more, he watched in horror as the fur quickly grew up his arm.
When the fur reached his upper arm, it thinned to half the size of his upper arm.
His two of his fingers merged as all of them hardened into sharp, blood red claws.
His arm then quickly followed suit.
When the grey fur reached his hips, the thinned greatly.
His legs bent slightly as they changed, but not by much.
It still caused him to shrink a few inches, though.
His toes also merged and hardened into three blood red claws on each foot.
When the changes started to progress to his head, a small mane of black fur grew around his neck.

Finally, his head began to change.
His head pushed out into a long muzzle as his nose melted into it.
The fur turned red around the back edge of his mouth and around his eyes.
His ears became pointed and moved to the top of his head.
Lastly, his hair turned red and began to grow, and grow, and grow, until it was almost the length of his body.
It moved all the way down to the center of his muzzle.
Parts of his hair began to stick up and turn black.

The changes finished, Quinn had problems smaller than being turned into a freak, his hair was hanging everywhere.
Looking around, he found a light blue hair band.
He somehow managed to get all of his hair together and fit it into the band.
As he did, he gained knowledge of his new powers and abilities.

Just then, the door leading outside opened.
"Well, looks like someone's done changing." The being said.
Quinn gasped as he saw that they were the same thing he just turned into.
"What did you do to me?!" He demanded.
"Well, where do I begin?" One of the creatures asked himself."Ah, I know."
"I'm sure that you've noticed that you've turned into something you've never seen before. That's because this species is almost extinct. We finally decided on a way to increase our population quickly, and that was to fake a kidnapping. We give the police three days because we know that they would never be able to do it. When the three days are up, we turn the kid into one of these." He said, gesturing to himself.
"What am I anyway?" Quinn asked, still panicking.
"It's called a Zoroark." The creature answered."Now, how about we show you the cool powers you have?"
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I slowly walked through the series of trees, the cool winter air showing me my breath.
It's been a month since I failed that disappearance case.
Right now, we were searching the woods again.
I sighed and leaned against a tree.

I then heard something behind me snap.
Quickly moving around to the other side of the tree, I was met with the sight of a strange creature.
It looked fairly similar to a werewolf, but it obviously wasn't.
It then noticed me, and our eyes met.
I don't know how, but I saw his entire story in those eyes.

I nodded, trying to show I understood.
It must've known what I meant, as it nodded back.
I then jumped back slightly as the corps of the missing boy appeared in front of me.
However, I was calmed by the knowledge that this creature gave me, knowing that this body wasn't real.
I motioned for the creature to leave, and it did.
"Hey, men! Front and center!" I called.