From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf1IJn06MZo
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVhtfjIyNlQ
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmaX4xKvXIg
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAj8g83Svrz
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGALXqSNvaq
And I became that voice.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0zUvS1ycaF
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]133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAyigrjTNKk
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIrvRW2b34P
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIxPHJRSGS5
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd5Z3J9PswF
“Thomas,133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡviy1TRwEW9
I know you read my last text.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY1I1BgeRyR
I know you were afraid.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyfhRYoKie1
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIYeSmt7tus
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ96d70OTIZd
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]133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD8A8RR8oE3
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡesLUz8cXwr
He wasn’t even a person.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOK374QmWPh
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]133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjWmKP3KI3i
“The lake doesn’t forget.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRGwqz1KvUY
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgTXyLePIcx
I’m going to go to him tonight.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoOFXAjMmKp
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]133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdqfqg1HqUC
"No one kills a shadow.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRWZzyV6DDR
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡasL2UQOArG
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwv8mBPv6fG
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKc1BKEA4vz
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMGM6DCJqbK
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHOxpGnEysn
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyZeMrEhNz5
"If there is a killer, it's time.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSmlMEHmvkC
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXLV3YXOdgn
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnmovodgQpg
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzsE1kFa9No
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHct90f05Z8
"There were five of us…133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsqXIVjP6XC
Then there were four…133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY7na9ML4XY
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiqmDt7AnFP
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6wq4udH4OK
Date: March 17133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMjoIAV39vL
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3rcnmo3ndf
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:133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC3gChyD52a
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.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFJ2EpOHM2q
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?133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeYQee9KNNy
Everyone, and no one.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKFSRgw71A6
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUVLIQK3IDq
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUvgwtlSXcc
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKJANv0yJxD
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
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