From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks134Please respect copyright.PENANAQSNles1aPc
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]134Please respect copyright.PENANAMwErK6udIb
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'134Please respect copyright.PENANArDVFLH8cUR
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'134Please respect copyright.PENANAc5T08aZnei
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.134Please respect copyright.PENANAgBNKArrmqv
And I became that voice.134Please respect copyright.PENANA9zlY2Ns6Hs
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.PENANA7jwD7VTeUj
“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.PENANAs4CGLLkEDL
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.134Please respect copyright.PENANA1pNQ2pR30N
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]134Please respect copyright.PENANABmlTX8ji1U
“Thomas,134Please respect copyright.PENANA22y92J09FZ
I know you read my last text.134Please respect copyright.PENANAW1OmNeGG9L
I know you were afraid.134Please respect copyright.PENANAqZeOm5eON1
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.134Please respect copyright.PENANA48XaGWKanf
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.134Please respect copyright.PENANAKoTrzxnH8y
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.PENANAknbLLJAkdc
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.134Please respect copyright.PENANA6i0d6u5urw
He wasn’t even a person.134Please respect copyright.PENANAaEOLWir9Y5
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.PENANATPWmduN0cj
“The lake doesn’t forget.134Please respect copyright.PENANA77jVUwZroO
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.134Please respect copyright.PENANAfx9NqDDiGN
I’m going to go to him tonight.134Please respect copyright.PENANAq5pAYvWlZr
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.PENANAyCegtNPu5q
"No one kills a shadow.134Please respect copyright.PENANAJtLs1azG5Z
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle134Please respect copyright.PENANAJc51NH7Tq0
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]134Please respect copyright.PENANAswMdR67ftj
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.134Please respect copyright.PENANAWul5H3cYfu
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.134Please respect copyright.PENANAAMOJazQIpz
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.134Please respect copyright.PENANA3mvZtnUaxf
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]134Please respect copyright.PENANA0gLxO7ObdO
"If there is a killer, it's time.134Please respect copyright.PENANAtwVvrgmSXV
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.134Please respect copyright.PENANAbGG9VEyQGs
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.134Please respect copyright.PENANAnrXJ1eD4Xb
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:134Please respect copyright.PENANAFT8UjJPFdS
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.PENANA9QwepDlxkM
"There were five of us…134Please respect copyright.PENANAq9Oo6Go8od
Then there were four…134Please respect copyright.PENANApbvkClMRm7
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report134Please respect copyright.PENANAX16d4Txo4y
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York134Please respect copyright.PENANAeFnKoYGCW8
Date: March 17134Please respect copyright.PENANASy77pttI2P
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:134Please respect copyright.PENANAhaLbbX25fN
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.PENANAj2JblZuQE4
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.PENANAnWXj3NANhe
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.PENANApgCTmDXs0Y
Everyone, and no one.134Please respect copyright.PENANADKE1JQZfmU
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:134Please respect copyright.PENANAewnup1trTI
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.134Please respect copyright.PENANAkNhB6AL6ir
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,134Please respect copyright.PENANAthVbDboMcy
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
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