Section Ⅰ - In the beginning...
September 17th, 2001
Liam enjoyed rainstorms. That is, after all, the reason he moved to Boca Raton. If you move to Florida expecting dry weather, you're not thinking too clearly. And now nice weather scared him. Six days ago, New York had a perfectly clear morning until 9:03, when it was smokey and the nation was forever changed. Tomorrow, it will be a week away from the tragedy, and maybe things will get a little bit better. For now, it is raining, and Liam praises it.

 
September 18th, 2001
The American Media Operations building in Boca Raton received a letter. Liam did not know that. Instead, Liam was doing yard work. Trees and shrubbery had grown a lot in the past few days. Other than that, life was pretty ordinary at the time.

Sun employee Robert Stevens collected the letter and opened it. The letter was not so ordinary. Still, Liam did not know that. He was just inside, preparing lunch. A simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich was all he needed. He took a bite. It was delectable.

Meanwhile, Robert took a breath without knowing the fatal consequences.

 
September 19th, 2001
Mail had just arrived. Liam went out to bring it in. Just bills and advertisements. Unlike Liam, New York had been sent a series of unique letters the day before, mostly to big media companies like ABC. Some employees opened them and took a breath. Liam just did too. It was, in fact, a vital function to animal life.

Though Liam’s breath was not as life-threatening, it was just one of the twenty thousand breaths he’d have today. Most people around the world were in the same respiratory situation.

 
October 1st, 2001
Finally, October had arrived. Liam loved Halloween; all the horror movies, scary costumes, seasonal store pop-ups, and strange occurrences. So, to start the month off right, Liam put on the newest horror movie. He loved it. It has all the key parts of a Halloween story. Now, Liam enabled himself to forget about the real-life horrific events of 9/11 and focus on some fake ones. Things were getting back to normal again.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Robert Stevens was facing the horror of October himself. Constantly vomiting and desperately trying to breathe. It was almost as if he was the main character of a horror movie himself—and that’s almost how it turned out.

 
October 2nd, 2001
Robert Stevens got admitted to the hospital. Nobody suspected much. It was probably influenza or the common cold; it would pass on quickly enough with medicine.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Liam had already binged nine movies. At this point, his eyes never came off the screen. He was entranced, which is what directors are always trying to achieve. Little did he know, in three days he would be entranced by a horror unimaginable. 

The man transformed into a werewolf on the screen.

 
October 5th, 2001
It arose quickly with modern media; 63-year-old Robert Stevens was killed by inhalation anthrax.

Disquiet surrounded Liam.

Nobody had seen this disease in the entire nation for a quarter of a century. And now, just a few weeks after 9/11, someone passed away from it. That’s suspicious at the least. As a past employee of the same hospital where Robert died, Liam was even more uneasy. He felt some weird sort of responsibility, even though he had left there eight years ago. Honestly, he had started experiencing the same symptoms himself. The issue was that he didn’t know how Robert contracted it, and if it was some weird sympathy placebo.

 
October 8th, 2001
It had to be an attack.

As Liam drove, he went past the American Media building. Men in hazmat suits were taping off the building, and people were leaving with bags and boxes full of everything in the offices. If there was no relation between that and Robert Stevens, who had worked at the building, Liam would be in awe.

He walked inside and set his keys down. All Liam cared about now was the news. Horror movies didn’t matter any longer. Liam became an extra, unscripted, and had no idea what was happening. As expected, the headline flashed across the screen.

“The American Media Operations building in Boca Raton, Florida, has been shut down and quarantined for the anthrax virus after journalist Robert Stevens allegedly contracted it through unknown means at the location,” said the reporter. “Other major media offices are also being investigated. Still an ongoing story.”

 
October 9th, 2001
As Liam sifted through his mail, wearing latex gloves and a gas mask, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Everyone who contracted anthrax had received it through a letter. The FBI was involved. No doubt, this was connected to the day—the very bad day. Tomorrow, Liam planned on going to a gala. He would no longer be doing that. In place of it, he’d be going to the store, buying canned foods and bottled water. Thankfully, he lived alone, and logistics would be easy.

 
October 15th, 2001
His horror was just driven further. As he just learned from the news, it wasn’t just ABC, NBC, American Media, and so on that were being attacked. But it was now the government. Senator Tom Daschle was sent one of the powdered letters himself. Whoever was doing this was going one step further. Liam didn’t know what to do. Any day now their entire infrastructure could be attacked. That would be too far though, wouldn’t it? America was not a country to forfeit its freedom. George Bush had already made it obvious that he was going to play hard with whoever was doing all this.

 
October 31st, 2001
Finally, the month was over. Without consequences, definitely not. The attacks claimed four lives, so far, and many others are still suffering. Liam did experience some relief. He knew the chances of him getting sick were unlikely; after all, he wasn’t someone big like the targets. Still, the blame was on terrorists, and that caused a tremor in the hand. Additionally, Liam felt that they needed to exercise more caution against these things. They can be very hostile—a silent assassin if executed right.

Section Ⅱ - Some time later...
August 5th, 2002
Maybe Liam’s suspicion was wrong. As of recently, scientist Steven Hatfill came into the spotlight of the FBI. They searched his house, his lab, and just labeled him a person of interest. If it was him, then maybe Al-Qaeda had nothing to do with it after all. On the other hand, Liam wasn’t fully persuaded because of the writing on the letters. Liam’s friends were also hoping they could catch someone, mostly as a result of an unwanted shutdown of their workplace.

 
August 6th, 2002
Simultaneously with Hatfill, Bruce Edwards Ivins was also investigated. He was a complex individual. He needed therapy sessions where he made—concerning—statements. Yet he also assisted the investigation in some ways. He was a complex individual.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂
After extensive thought, Liam would be moving to Washington, D.C., after being offered an irresistible position. In a way, it had been though. After all, D.C. was also attacked, and Liam wanted to leave anything involved with the situation behind. Clearly, that was not in it for him. Now he would be an immunologist at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center. Yes, that was his job in Boca Raton too. The pressure placed on him in the situation—unimaginable. The new job started in January, and he planned to move in November.

 
November 3rd, 2002
Unfortunately, he placed himself even closer to the very things he wanted to leave behind. Liam bought himself a house on Montana Avenue, which is just blocks away from the Brentwood Postal Facility. Brentwood is a mail facility where two people were killed just one year ago from anthrax in the building. At least just two days prior they started a cleanup. Maybe that would help to scrub the horror out of his mind a little. Maybe he could open his mail without the feeling of terror. Maybe the job wouldn’t be as exhausting. That was all sitting on a smidge of hope.

 
November 21st, 2002
Today is the anniversary of the last murder—death, that’s better—of the anthrax attacks. But the Amerithrax investigation, a combination of the illness and the country coined by the FBI, was still raging forward—at least that’s what everyone wished. Ottilie Lundgren, a loving family member, marked the end of the worst of 2001. Sadly, it cost her life, out in a small Connecticut city. Liam’s department was honoring her, and everyone else who was killed, today. Mostly because their newest member, Dr. McKenna, was a close friend of Ottilie. She recalled the horror of seeing her house bordered off with caution tape and everyone being warded away by men from the CDC. As he could see now, Liam was not the only one desperately running. 

 
December 31st, 2003
Two-and-a-half years later, Liam barely remembered it had happened at all. Brentwood recently reopened, now named the lengthy Joseph Curseen Junior and Thomas Morris Junior Processing and Distribution Center. Deaths were over, and so were the infections. And the investigation was now happening privately. The media saw no value in the two-year-old story, but rather in the downfall of the dollar and Canada’s new Prime Minister. Liam was finally at ease; things were back to normal, and he had just met someone he took a particularly fine liking to. The world was good.

Section Ⅲ - Epilogue
August 1st, 2008
Today the ease took a shift. The Associated Press announced that suspect Bruce Edward Ivins had ... [died] days prior. If it were not him who sent the letters, everything was too coincidental. Additionally, Steven Hatfill sued the Justice Department successfully. So it couldn’t be him. That left Ivins, or someone else uncovered, to be the guilty one. But Liam didn’t care too much about the news. If anything, it completely ended the entire situation. Besides, he had a wife, and kids to tell the story to.