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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