From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRsI7mYt6Xh
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIZByJPYw8p
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHqbkNNKg01
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsTrBIrcNkL
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvAMEwmrjQ7
And I became that voice.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrjlcVtP8or
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]21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxGLkg2myBP
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6uCV7CsCh0
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpwXjsHVpou
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDKob44qQMm
“Thomas,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSvVnJV2Qmu
I know you read my last text.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBZnzR16AFH
I know you were afraid.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4neQCWozqC
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnAnli4MmMx
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcHgKfrzjA6
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]21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvftJ5bIUv6
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUOGXeAYMFu
He wasn’t even a person.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2JLVCF1V1j
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]21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoJ39n5SQLR
“The lake doesn’t forget.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLUHnD6DFi3
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5owgr9UiJ8
I’m going to go to him tonight.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0XNvF26Xaz
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]21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrJYd0IldLA
"No one kills a shadow.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxcrioLK48v
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8LmQkgdbmg
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7ztttobOob
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxKMYwfH2fj
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ2saenBhmS
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmlB9GD6dAS
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjSeWaBDf6K
"If there is a killer, it's time.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡunDEkz3aVe
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO1znFJEeTV
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSFauqt5POF
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAhhk9o0pVl
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2u6OJqFJKt
"There were five of us…21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvH9p908kck
Then there were four…21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxDRLV4gTQy
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTF3spWIT2m
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKCJZfQSodg
Date: March 1721Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrEo9xnW0ce
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsa7bz9rL3z
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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdag28kni3L
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7aKzWlUvS4
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?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE2cxaUxo1h
Everyone, and no one.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJcXyPkfcGp
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlnjPZsVISP
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJC0WjciPO7
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpHOX81YXrm
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
ns216.73.216.51da2
