“Las ranas, mami.” Chuy tugged gently at his mother’s tunic, still engrossed in his videos.

“¿Qué pasa mijo?”

“Las ranas se necessitan agua.”

“Ay, mijo.” She reached for the little screen, assuming that he was having troubles with his game. Instead, she found him watching an episode of Diego that he had watched many times before.

“¿Qué te pasa, querido?”

“Se necessitan agua.”

“Ay, papito, enseñame.” For the second time in a week, her little son took her by the hand, dreamily trailing her down the hall as he watched his video. Again, he brought her to the breakroom where she found her daughter hiding in the corner. “¿Que pasa Angelica?” She glanced around the breakroom, but instead of the enormous metal toad that she had seen last time, she found a pair of twins standing at the vending machine staring silently at her.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Tales of aliens are fairly common in her home state of Jalisco. Rumors of saucers and little men were recorded from the beginning of time. That these two frog-like people happened to wear little t-shirts along with some elaborate Indian jewelry made absolute sense to Marta. Her own abuela had told her stories of visitors from long before the highways were built.

They did not speak, but stared unblinkingly at her, each clutching a small cup of instant quaker oats to their chest. “¿Necesitan ayuda?” she asked, but they did not respond.

“Se necessitan agua,” Chuy said.

“Si, Papi, si.” She touched the one in the Coke shirt, gently taking the paper cup from it. Carefully demonstrating how to peel back the foil lid, she urged them toward the coffee machine and demonstrated the red spigot for hot water. She filled it to the line, closed the cover, and set a plastic spoon over the top. “A si,” she held the filled cup down to the frog in the Coke shirt. It cradled the cardboard cup in its palms as if it were cold.

Regarding the two standing there naked from the waist down, she decided that they must be cold without pants. She filled the second cup and passed it to the frog in the yellow shirt, noticing that they were barefoot. Pobre ranas, she thought to herself. Tomorrow night she would bring some of Chuy and Angelica’s old clothes perhaps, as well as some shoes.