From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks134Please respect copyright.PENANAiQYkFYBh7e
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]134Please respect copyright.PENANAwn1UWWjNaE
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'134Please respect copyright.PENANASSg0QrOA5G
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'134Please respect copyright.PENANAREU7h0f7rI
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.134Please respect copyright.PENANAPG4EnYyySQ
And I became that voice.134Please respect copyright.PENANAXlX3Kk8ie1
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]134Please respect copyright.PENANAeS4YNhpPnr
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.134Please respect copyright.PENANAg3L1pEQ9pG
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.134Please respect copyright.PENANAF8ELyMovKt
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]134Please respect copyright.PENANAVcNYYmJYwg
“Thomas,134Please respect copyright.PENANAidhjwN3pbh
I know you read my last text.134Please respect copyright.PENANA2nqBpgkB0l
I know you were afraid.134Please respect copyright.PENANAa9BMLqaKRX
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.134Please respect copyright.PENANAFkDfD4S0B1
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.134Please respect copyright.PENANAhBlI7NWCP7
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]134Please respect copyright.PENANAWdhsfUGbcu
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.134Please respect copyright.PENANA4vKOgzNKLK
He wasn’t even a person.134Please respect copyright.PENANACS1xTMIEgI
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]134Please respect copyright.PENANA7hHoprWwRR
“The lake doesn’t forget.134Please respect copyright.PENANA8TFPeS3qTb
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.134Please respect copyright.PENANABZ6IM7gdxn
I’m going to go to him tonight.134Please respect copyright.PENANAG9O5NOWoiC
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]134Please respect copyright.PENANAVGNLG5IV7j
"No one kills a shadow.134Please respect copyright.PENANAxmppU9me1E
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle134Please respect copyright.PENANAkLaMT0aFMv
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]134Please respect copyright.PENANAfuc2jBa4AQ
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.134Please respect copyright.PENANAGmiYLQ80w8
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.134Please respect copyright.PENANAMgTbx7CxgT
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.134Please respect copyright.PENANAJqk0SnPxly
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]134Please respect copyright.PENANAXGBtYSFvYp
"If there is a killer, it's time.134Please respect copyright.PENANAAvcbSZkGFa
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.134Please respect copyright.PENANAa3vS6jpRUg
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.134Please respect copyright.PENANAF3o7eUfUj0
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:134Please respect copyright.PENANATZBFFcqgCC
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]134Please respect copyright.PENANAbUQTEoTAKN
"There were five of us…134Please respect copyright.PENANAxBjHW07EYy
Then there were four…134Please respect copyright.PENANAas3RSWvFjk
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report134Please respect copyright.PENANAf96ulqz7wr
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York134Please respect copyright.PENANAEUjBshK2j7
Date: March 17134Please respect copyright.PENANACIfr8c8cRG
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:134Please respect copyright.PENANAJ4N6Fl69au
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:134Please respect copyright.PENANAc4RC8MNJgD
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.134Please respect copyright.PENANA98QHwG2piK
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?134Please respect copyright.PENANAIM88ovjToA
Everyone, and no one.134Please respect copyright.PENANAIzl33YgYgS
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:134Please respect copyright.PENANAT6GWcrtswo
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.134Please respect copyright.PENANAxWNDuYSrAR
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,134Please respect copyright.PENANAYyiHFkJJX3
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
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