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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