From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks170Please respect copyright.PENANAJIQPGiJPrx
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]170Please respect copyright.PENANAYt4BRbWpRL
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'170Please respect copyright.PENANAUKN0sL8ene
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'170Please respect copyright.PENANAZHYQjXvWbz
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.170Please respect copyright.PENANAyQS5AUJIcF
And I became that voice.170Please respect copyright.PENANAzWHwI1kRjK
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]170Please respect copyright.PENANADhDbDlZNoK
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.170Please respect copyright.PENANAQQX2s8L6fB
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.170Please respect copyright.PENANAvSty4sCQrF
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]170Please respect copyright.PENANAEsxu0zm7sc
“Thomas,170Please respect copyright.PENANA8us1l321YI
I know you read my last text.170Please respect copyright.PENANAcHHQ9FDa5x
I know you were afraid.170Please respect copyright.PENANAJf0eRkhoDs
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.170Please respect copyright.PENANAac46bnvXCu
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.170Please respect copyright.PENANAObcdgcFhk7
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]170Please respect copyright.PENANA232Q2CH6Rw
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.170Please respect copyright.PENANA7DNYiOTZoa
He wasn’t even a person.170Please respect copyright.PENANAdHm8jdJ1mL
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]170Please respect copyright.PENANAsxuft3EQhU
“The lake doesn’t forget.170Please respect copyright.PENANAGlmsvhOjTn
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.170Please respect copyright.PENANASmWtZghsw8
I’m going to go to him tonight.170Please respect copyright.PENANABh2UZL5S4A
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]170Please respect copyright.PENANA6HiZrvEyNd
"No one kills a shadow.170Please respect copyright.PENANAvNXq8qRi07
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle170Please respect copyright.PENANAmRjnruFUBs
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]170Please respect copyright.PENANA78ZZIEKh8b
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.170Please respect copyright.PENANAYQGsusuaqJ
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.170Please respect copyright.PENANAxHcIEKoO24
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.170Please respect copyright.PENANA8KoiENgsta
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]170Please respect copyright.PENANA37wRuVHM9W
"If there is a killer, it's time.170Please respect copyright.PENANAujsWc0jM0J
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.170Please respect copyright.PENANAmSmbAKLJi1
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.170Please respect copyright.PENANATodDXGbxQP
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:170Please respect copyright.PENANAKGC2p9Shzo
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]170Please respect copyright.PENANATp8QvJfGho
"There were five of us…170Please respect copyright.PENANASYOpXmSc7j
Then there were four…170Please respect copyright.PENANAjP0eDlf1tp
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report170Please respect copyright.PENANA71Z5eWuVrX
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York170Please respect copyright.PENANAzfwCJjce1y
Date: March 17170Please respect copyright.PENANAaeUy3ZkJzI
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:170Please respect copyright.PENANAtmDVeAbaYf
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:170Please respect copyright.PENANAsvpTSmmV7Z
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.170Please respect copyright.PENANA9rIQaxxAZD
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?170Please respect copyright.PENANABFN2dThc8x
Everyone, and no one.170Please respect copyright.PENANAgjBisEiAXJ
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:170Please respect copyright.PENANAJ0zNKtIh9a
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.170Please respect copyright.PENANAqGaXWNTmI1
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,170Please respect copyright.PENANAdT7RiJuGB1
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
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