Now:

     Skip heard the sounds of struggle, followed by what sounded like a series of deep, guttural, and, somehow, wet groans and grunts.

​     The final toad left the room, leaving Skip and the woman alone.

     They stayed on the floor, too afraid to move.

     They heard weapons fire.

     "Sounds like the toads are under attack," Skip said out loud, no longer bothering to mutter.

     Something loud and hard made the door go BAM!, causing both Skip and the woman to yip!

​     A laser beam sliced through the wall, just missing Skip's head.

     The woman screamed on Skip's behalf.

     The din of weapons fire became so loud, Skip felt like putting his hands over his ears.

     "An invading army?" Skip asked.

     Then,

     BOOM!

     That explosion made Skip ​have to put his hands over his ears. Skip felt afraid, for a single, frantic heartbeat, that the whole room might blow apart.  

     Then, silence.

     No more weapons fire.

​     No more struggling or running sounds, no more choking sounds, nothing like that.

     Still, Skip and the woman stayed where they were.

     The door that led outside opened.

     A young man took a single step into the nursery to take a quick, searching look around.

     He can't be more than sixteen, Skip thought.

     The young man shared, with the woman, the darker skin of the desert dweller.

     Crow colored hair that looked like it'd never know a comb hung in a tangled mass from his scalp.

     At least four weapons hung from each shoulder, each of them splattered with green blood. He held a laser rifle in one hand and a grenade launcher in the other.

     An elaborate and intricate tattoo covered every part of a thin and muscular body.

     He wore trousers and something for his feet, nothing more.

     The trousers he wore looked like they'd been soaked in green blood.

​     He panted like an animal overcome with bloodlust, low and rapid.

     The whites of the young man's eyes seemed to glow in contrast to the green blood caked on his face. Skip looked into those eyes to see a mad, snarling beast, but also a child, confused and alone, eyes so intense Skip found himself mesmerized. 

     Skip blinked to snap himself out of it, and, by the time he finished, the young man was already out the door and gone.

     "Chuco," the woman next to Skip said.

END OF CHAPTER THREE 

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