From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiAH3SoPnS6
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVd9JKDk6NM
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVPRGA3CBW2
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6gLY8HDw6Q
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJcYKNunWFP
And I became that voice.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLtPRUPAL0u
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]185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ44HpFMRqOf
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf5BT34ZZMb
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIncMhO7Q0C
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG9P6Iim2Yq
“Thomas,185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtVyWSPwIwa
I know you read my last text.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOknCp6mYWJ
I know you were afraid.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm9mXcmGSgz
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuOlblMe18D
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKqUlV1v8wU
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]185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtS3qQ1HkDx
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEyy2HZTYXL
He wasn’t even a person.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4hx1DV3Xrg
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]185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4IGGs4tvok
“The lake doesn’t forget.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0iEpRBtFyT
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNfS8ZpusI5
I’m going to go to him tonight.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1VmBIDwtT3
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]185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQQ1o2pZ0AS
"No one kills a shadow.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHDqsudwi82
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJC2EyN6XKC
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsNxqd6UwB5
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2qzrFDGXdk
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡla6X1edE80
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF4bDiO24rs
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqYsbkZjued
"If there is a killer, it's time.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTwxpTSS81T
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ397VPNoTA
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyQoAtezDoi
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyEpV8Jba4q
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOS564VPXUh
"There were five of us…185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXIw9rR9eft
Then there were four…185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFEgRcwtB0R
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtJD3rSFSOe
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSTSXz8TzK7
Date: March 17185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjU3GuNWaDx
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjUj2hQHfak
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:185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsvjm51rb5D
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.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGlPznZTxbU
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?185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDvPgXMCgVX
Everyone, and no one.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3CcYvYbyPq
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡegvMQME5pa
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYvBlmvfhtI
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoaxFgiubVZ
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
ns216.73.216.206da2
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