Earth is Dying

Chapter 26 (Atlas's POV)

My lips touch hers, and our bodies connect, changing my mindset completely on everything ive ever thought in life. There will never be a minute from here on out, where im without her. I will never hurt her, I will always protect her and she will always be mine. I pull away from her after our kiss and I embrace her, as everything lights up around us and our surroundings portray exactly how warm and perfect I feel inside. Layla gasps, and laughs into the air, as fireflies twirl and swarm around her. "Look at them Atlas, they're beautiful," she says, as one lands on her finger, and she continues to laugh, as she spins around and then grabs both of my hands, forcing me to dance with her. We place our heads on each other's shoulders, as I hold her, swaying in motion with the stars and fireflies shining above and around us. "I love you Layla," I whisper into her ear, as we continue to sway together, holding each other like nothing else matters. All of a sudden, the fireflies dim their lights, and an unknown voice speaks to us from the darkness, "I hope I'm not interrupting something," it says, causing Layla to jump, I grab onto her even tighter. "Who are you?", I ask them, taking Layla with me as I carefully step back, in case I need to escape. "My name's Moose, don't worry, you don't have to be afraid." I don't say anything back, there's no need for us to trust strangers in here, not with the warnings I was given about us sabotaging each other. "You need to listen to me, my other teammates want to sabotage you," he whispers, "but I'm not like that. They're hiding behind the trees, and they want me to invade your camp and steal your supplies. Take me over to your camp, and ill come back here and tell them there was nothing to steal," I put an arm in front of Layla, since the guy keeps moving closer to me to tell me what he's about to do. I know I have no choice but to follow his orders so I say, "follow me", and we find our way back to camp, which is hard to do, since we don't have a fire yet. I see Miles, slumped down on a tree, asleep, completely oblivious to what's going on. The guy who we lead to our shelter, put his hand over Layla's mouth and she lets out a muffled scream, causing Miles to wake up, take a minute to stretch, then get instantly startled. "Who's there?", he asks, and starts patting on the ground to try and find what im guessing is a weapon of some sort. "Don't worry, I'm not actually going to hurt anyone. I'm just doing this in case my teammates are looking," Layla doesn't listen to what hes saying and continues to scream, even though we can barely hear her. "I promise you im not going to hurt you. I told you, my name's Moose, my teammates sent me out here to sabotage you but im not actually going to do it." Miles drops whatever weapon hes holding, and pauses for a moment. "Moose?", he asks. I can hear the emotion in his voice as he says his name. "Miles?", Moose responds, as he slowly takes his hand off of Layla's mouth and runs over to give Miles a hug. I can hear both of them sniffle as they hold each other. "I'm glad you're here with me my friend."