From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIQWTJIftD8
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq91b9V4mZO
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqSYr7MlRI0
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfQLIUaK3uF
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9graW7pnSJ
And I became that voice.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjaMT4jukwR
And in time, they came to rely on me whenever they wanted to lie in the name of truth.”
✦ [From Leonard's Diary - Second Year of Joining the Circle of Five]116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7a6rtk3u36
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkuUhwnPaZo
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwYlJ7CYQ7N
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjkfO1a2jM8
“Thomas,116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVNOkUdPjOp
I know you read my last text.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP0xZ2t07WQ
I know you were afraid.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡizdISYZ14S
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8gNu1jL7Xt
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEw8y6ALx42
Let him die in me… or let him live if someone finds him worthy.”
✦ [Note in Ella’s handwriting – in the margin of the investigation paper]116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDnGd3sLm2D
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBT1bkT98N0
He wasn’t even a person.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYZVeLU2SCU
He was a chokehold in the voice of everyone who wrote, and he was afraid to be attributed with what he believed.”
✦ [Last page of Leonard’s notebook – the day before the incident]116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaWA5VF3sFd
“The lake doesn’t forget.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVaaLTWZXQJ
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCPPyeQCPpq
I’m going to go to him tonight.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡctH0ZgqXVd
And if I come back, I’ll write under Athan’s name… not to hide behind me, but to apologize to him.”
✦ [Epilogue – Unknown handwriting, found inside Leonard's coat fold]116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡckPh9Jrnsx
"No one kills a shadow.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLpMr19lyy5
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPObmriTg6t
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeSEaf3yxJ8
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL0DYEAt43Y
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡISIijxNeyQ
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmlLcaugiCL
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLE8l5zfm6J
"If there is a killer, it's time.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAlvnWd4a8m
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl8DHLihJV1
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgpK1YXZcME
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHNeebSesRX
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtV79urG1VD
"There were five of us…116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu1vfomNlfT
Then there were four…116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhTxKm92BCH
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvlJrK3coM6
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMWpMma2HuA
Date: March 17116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡigGG40d4Cc
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEb0EjNPaiz
The "Five" literary circle created a fictional literary persona named Athan, which served as a disguise for writing highly daring or identity-blurring texts, published under their real names.
Over the years, Leonard Wilkes, the youngest member, began to give Athan a personal life. He wanted to transform from a shadow into a real author.
This approach was strongly opposed by the members, who feared it would expose the true identities of all those who contributed under that name.
He was subjected to indirect threats and gradually removed from the group.
On the day of his death, a gun was found in his hand, a gunshot wound to his mouth, and his ear was severed, as in some of Athan's self-written stories.
🔍 Conclusion:116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ0nXs1bWG4
It was not a pure suicide. Leonard went out to perform a symbolic ritual similar to what was written, hoping to find someone to stop him, to bring him back from his pre-existing madness.
It wasn't a direct murder.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6h53nYCufY
There's no physical evidence of another person at the scene, but the psychological pressure, the symbolic threat, and the literary betrayal were all an invisible bullet.
🧩 The killer?116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfZvlZVvrde
Everyone, and no one.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1rLLXeBpOU
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ14KjhC46Yh
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQeLluGzxZw
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYegmIPtNiA
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
ns216.73.216.25da2
