From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1vy6BpshrS
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkKu6DiYmIo
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl5WTGBXgCE
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPM5brgAPNk
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUyTNssjM2q
And I became that voice.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSTnGR4aZqM
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]24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ33EC9WgiWm
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9hFBr4UEQK
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeMwB6DwZoK
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc2br5G0Qxz
“Thomas,24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6fRpIaIXYn
I know you read my last text.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhllUBp5mJs
I know you were afraid.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHZRyqmrHpJ
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8ahvT27l15
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCk2LAF67cv
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]24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtdK9ES0RYI
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3k1BpGrLQE
He wasn’t even a person.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQNZgLJmVnL
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]24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzmJKS84YmR
“The lake doesn’t forget.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaDgtbSOUUd
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡey4Pd9tpV4
I’m going to go to him tonight.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0w3SiJLgAg
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]24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY8hloBDmzd
"No one kills a shadow.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMSC2qCnnor
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv2srnP80ve
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPDNTzInNUv
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRK1Rz3CPSw
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrZNkxqlluO
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQdmcq3Ozww
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZpgwGb5qKB
"If there is a killer, it's time.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLVfh3FKjz8
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkA3gZvWhjf
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvxt7MY73lZ
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw5xOhve2Uz
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4yYiwQJ9tt
"There were five of us…24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrqTTM5nXnJ
Then there were four…24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXHbbgH3yle
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiSzdSAY7Tu
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9qdYAVAwB5
Date: March 1724Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ81ecUFDmgZ
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTGiVRqr8gs
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:24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE3HqhRaxjx
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.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPKTo5wwDpE
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?24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAzud4kPhUY
Everyone, and no one.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6D3XkRWmq8
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4WkwaXlfLz
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJWS8Dd1K5E
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFX0wiILCBL
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
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