From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsZurwqXVvZ
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ24UB8EzkcF
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj6YAU7w9F0
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwf0jTT6qcu
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoVFiZKakAw
And I became that voice.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZL688KXUel
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]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6W0TRZHyEz
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ38ARyXpM0l
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBkO1WfIXoI
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Pok0vpPqC
“Thomas,10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaGyrBA4HWD
I know you read my last text.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdArh5HfflK
I know you were afraid.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCGGPzdsn0I
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn9VeP8ugcH
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTnzz4ucH0P
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]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzFVsvPhUTK
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6zxZviz4CV
He wasn’t even a person.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeejJXMz5A8
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]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOwgHhTMrOr
“The lake doesn’t forget.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLAvWmFx6Aw
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKsS5sRwB4n
I’m going to go to him tonight.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ39fviwZCdp
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]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJRnkXKKF4n
"No one kills a shadow.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQOAxBmEoMb
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv8BSQCBcM2
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0JxLiXdGJr
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmZtgcMCY56
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPSsD5I3yOc
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRtV4rVodZi
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt3dLAw8cxr
"If there is a killer, it's time.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV3y1AldFsC
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4ZTEyNQy9T
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3dJs58XjXp
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡekrGPQHRLi
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYCBbMHMrGG
"There were five of us…10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRECxNVKbqd
Then there were four…10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoA2LeVidKN
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuZ46bPvLiY
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8IG45M4srs
Date: March 1710Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLSDYQ6S7u1
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3wLuVcHXds
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:10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhApFWRrKbD
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ4QbNmsyVV
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?10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWzEvPVt0FF
Everyone, and no one.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYc9V6GS8Ay
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcHXhsKf9gw
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsNtWC1fKik
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRunZvFCH2e
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
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