She held onto a corner of the tent, refusing to let go, while she scanned the hillside. Visibility sucked. The only way to survive was up. She hoisted the tent’s corner to her shoulder and dragged it, and LITERALLY EVERYTHING she owned inside, through the underbrush. It caught on roots and twigs until she stumbled to a spot that would work for what she needed — collapse. Despair. Dramatic despondence and dismay.
She staked the bottom down, arranged the tent poles (one bent awkwardly, so the roof caved in) and attempted to stretch the loops and panels over the poles — the fucking last hook wouldn’t hook on the final — she dropped it, banged her feet up and down, and screamed at the sky. This was so freaking frustrating she needed to — she gulped a deep breath, picked up the hook, and forced it around the pole.
And dove into the tent.
She was sopping, drenched, wet to her core.
The tent was wrecked.
The roof bowed down filling with water. If a pool collected, it would begin to seep in. She knocked it upward and it immediately filled again. Great. There would be no sleeping tonight.
The rain was relentless, the sound terrifying. And that — that river, that catastrophe, that near death experience — had been really close. Too close.
She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around and cried. The rain didn’t let up for twenty more hours.
