The next few hours passed in a blur. Caroline drifted in and out of a restless sleep as the anticipation in the crowd around her dimmed and surged. At times she found herself both fully conscious and dreaming at once. The flames outside the window became nothing more than orange dancers, and the shouts around her were a simple melody. That night, the city she had walked since childhood became a terrifying wonderland; preying on her every thought and fear.
Day dawned to little fanfare the next morning. A gorgeous sunrise unseen by a city that had long since grown numb to a skyline painted orange. Usually when the sun comes it chases away the nightmares, now it could do nothing but illuminate them.
Caroline barely even noticed the sun had returned until almost mid-morning. The fire outside had burned so bright that the station had been bathed in perpetual light since she arrived. She was disoriented and her head felt foggy from the few distressing hours of sleep. Her stomach clawed at her chest making her regret not eating more of the chicken last night. A quick glance around the terminal suggested that she was not the only one wondering where her next meal would come from.
Crouched in corners and along the station walls, mothers struggled to console crying infants and calm restless children. Fathers stood at attention, occasionally exchanging a quick word with one another before returning to their post, pacing back and forth anxiously in front of their families.
The scene sent a sudden dagger through Caroline's chest.
From that moment on it seemed like time stopped existing. The sun set, rose, and rose again. It made little difference to any of them. About twice a day someone would hand out cold food from the station's small cafe storage and the crowd would rise up again to scramble over each other before returning to the four or five square feet they had claimed as their own.
It went on like this for three days. Three days that simultaneously seemed to be a year and only a few hours. Caroline wasn't sure where the time went. She had nothing to do but sit in a crowded terminal with her own thoughts. She should have been bored out of her mind. And yet, time still slipped through her fingers. Minutes, hours, and then days draining away before her numb and glassy eyes.
She had made a subconscious habit of spending long amounts of time in front of the restroom mirrors; part of her hoping that she would run into Lydia again. But the most she got for her efforts were a few odd stares from other ladies that seemed to say,
"Well there's a self absorbed girl for you. The city is dying and all she can worry about is her hair."
Eventually Caroline was forced to cave and return to the small comfort that Charlotte could offer.
As each day passed and the fire raged on, anticipation grew in the refugees. There seemed to be little progress being made to extinguish the flames, and they crept closer to the station with every hour. There was a sense of dread in the air; it appeared likely that unless the debris could be cleared from the tracks within hours, the grand white marble terminal that had once been the pride of Chicago would be permanently stained blood red.
They needed a miracle.
Caroline had never considered herself overly religious. Her family hadn't exactly been church regulars for most of the time she remembered. Still, when she heard the soft pounding on the glass windows begin to drown out the now all-too-familiar crackling of flames outside, she could have fallen down in prayer alongside any priest.
Many people in the crowd did just that as thick curtains were finally pulled away to reveal heavy raindrops splattering the glass.
The air outside was thick and dark. Black smoke covered the entire horizon before drifting upwards to join the grey clouds beginning to gather above the desperate city. Between the two Caroline could no longer make out the skyline she had spent so many years marvelling at. In her mind's eye she imagined the buildings all lined up the way they would look from this angle. The towering offices, grand theaters, and proud churches.
This, she thought, was the true power of her city. It didn't matter what smoke or storm clouds blocked the view because Chicago's people knew and loved their city enough to fill in the picture themselves. She glanced around the room and noticed many others that seemed doing the same visualization exercise, and for the first time since she had left her house that fateful night, she felt certain that everything was going to be okay.
Then there was a gust of wind. Thunder rumbled, and for a moment the smoke on the horizon parted like a great cloak.
Nothing. There was nothing there. Where there should have been a dazzling and historic downtown skyline, there was just nothing.
Within seconds the smoke had filled in again, leaving the helpless bystanders to wonder if they had somehow lost their sense of direction or just imagined the whole thing. Caroline's mind couldn't even process what she thought she'd just seen. She ran through her mental map of the city again, wondering how she'd been so far off. It just didn't make sense. She'd been here before; looked out these very same windows at the bright lights of the city.
She took a few steps backwards and grasped onto the wall beside her for support. She was suddenly not feeling well. She felt dizzy and disoriented, as if she had been cast adrift on pitch black rocky seas on a tiny raft.
Through the whole ordeal she had held fast to the knowledge that no matter how terrifying or hopeless things can seem, the world always works itself to rights in the end. Now she wasn't sure she knew anything about the way the world worked.