From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRvLeaCxUDH
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPr3FRCJCKb
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWV9fjLLaaV
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5exccwaQvq
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOgkGyKptp7
And I became that voice.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5HBp6qyxr6
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]23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ66eXnAYfBn
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz0Yr6XA1CP
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLYT46Bszjm
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn7VhRPow8L
“Thomas,23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWXNDGuvuUl
I know you read my last text.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiyyrqu6259
I know you were afraid.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtOpogdFx2B
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlpTIiJtdzl
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1EPO9O24hy
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]23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡntlR9BEOeT
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNmn9QHMRIr
He wasn’t even a person.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5GtIlEet2t
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]23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEFVL7qPcy9
“The lake doesn’t forget.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxv0JLkOJKL
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT2EHoYUf56
I’m going to go to him tonight.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIl8LDhxKsf
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]23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4lSNYWEheb
"No one kills a shadow.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6zFeojhVNZ
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGyBmz5JJWK
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAYDiXcL3lO
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡObuYroHTBN
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx2fBnGiMaV
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6kS8HDvmek
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtk3Xi4juqu
"If there is a killer, it's time.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4wy5pjsQtZ
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhix1ZkEX9v
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6wD1XculPM
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWWenXr6aTW
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRQl7jDd8PR
"There were five of us…23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbL3RlPpe3z
Then there were four…23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz56U04bGFp
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5oDPvq6kzZ
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWMWGSUdw8o
Date: March 1723Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTj1ph93Sam
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGQH2K1aPq7
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:23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJGrDBR3Dm5
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.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm2rFWdWfMs
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?23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ0lLSV3jwj
Everyone, and no one.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpsFTCExAve
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAWeHRfM6fl
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡekx4NttpfU
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrblY0OcgFC
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
ns216.73.216.10da2
