From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP32Z9UdMAK
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiJlIQx53kD
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd8Pc4G3tvN
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8QhE144mO0
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbezfwaWQny
And I became that voice.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHTonwI7e5h
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]13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcGjHqXbyxF
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgk0f2BoRLS
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVSPAMD8zY7
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡedKa0BqoR8
“Thomas,13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ58OSZ8t714
I know you read my last text.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtrATGRnAAM
I know you were afraid.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2j2mREUjU2
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0M7KhmvRUS
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsEjPFZjpaF
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]13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn9y5o9rC2V
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ5aw0CfE4e
He wasn’t even a person.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlH6vG2Pss2
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]13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgFBt4hta5d
“The lake doesn’t forget.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK8K2vR499L
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuyObFwBRuE
I’m going to go to him tonight.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEyM9fukht3
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]13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbsddWvNWP5
"No one kills a shadow.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQMU1le8591
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWb4HbVJEO9
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbqRSBzElLC
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNwYpQ9Qubz
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXochn1GdmK
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0NlGxOIG6h
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk2klb2SIzp
"If there is a killer, it's time.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSLTskcXqhy
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqJAAHvOCtB
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡisJXVYpNx4
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMICFLK44Dg
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnLljzvnkiY
"There were five of us…13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE0EkpK8fnY
Then there were four…13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU3YynrhyhX
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsUPU2aPGwf
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSzkNCrz5Nw
Date: March 1713Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYqcYvLu06Z
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnoZCOvwf5U
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:13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnkmEw6FIoZ
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.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6K9tYrJnqG
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?13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4RQ5nN4Tci
Everyone, and no one.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwoB3ZMujAs
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3al3JtjD2g
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoidGiTfizq
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnHbo4YQZT2
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
ns216.73.216.102da2
