Rained-Out Festival: She Takes Our Friend in the Tent

The rain came down like the sky had split open on purpose. One minute the three of them were standing in the churned mud of the festival grounds watching the stage lights flicker and die, the next they were sprinting between sagging tarps and abandoned coolers with their arms full of whatever they could grab. Headliner canceled. Everything canceled. Lightning cracked white over the treeline and the crowd scattered into a wet, swearing exodus.

Felix’s bigger tent had already collapsed into a drowned mess of poles and nylon. Darius’s solo shelter was halfway across the field and under three inches of water. That left Sonia’s tiny two-person dome, the one they’d brought as backup, the one that barely fit two sleeping bags when they were being polite about it. Now three soaked adults were going to jam themselves inside it until morning or the storm got bored, whichever came first.

They crawled in one after another, dripping and laughing too hard, the kind of laughter that sits right on top of something else. Felix went first and shoved their gear into the corners. Darius followed, broad shoulders scraping the zipper, and Sonia came last, peeling her soaked tank top away from her skin as she sealed them in. The air turned thick immediately—wet cotton, sunscreen, the metallic tang of rain, and the heat of three bodies that had nowhere to go.

“Jesus, it’s a coffin,” Felix muttered, knees drawn up. He was already pressed against one curved wall, watching water bead and run down the fabric above his head.