From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwlyFR5IHo2
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbtBiW3ALQq
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBFc88LvSYS
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGb7521vltL
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡglyDwYu7uh
And I became that voice.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZXAAvavHAz
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]187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGd7q5rAVmm
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcLURflc2FQ
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaSxs85veD5
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjM8qNPoKo7
“Thomas,187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLbXetQNJSz
I know you read my last text.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWbRYsIRTLs
I know you were afraid.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYQN7niFGXk
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5NCto9LYUw
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI0tSXK9wxh
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]187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmRDpHDx23P
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgqZUztzcxs
He wasn’t even a person.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjkoxnqntxL
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]187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYXz5phFk1g
“The lake doesn’t forget.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7J0dszQupM
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjhcn9E0D4e
I’m going to go to him tonight.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqIWUVT9FNQ
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]187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6yoBjgUTWH
"No one kills a shadow.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvEI4PLJ2AQ
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9ukeasnRq9
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqqzNHcrOg3
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOIaw7nKCfH
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXrc86v5oRH
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL5gakWhtwW
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYIH4sO5kw3
"If there is a killer, it's time.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe1pydguNkp
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6koZzjbnax
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWH0h5CdYXJ
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV1dIPVdysd
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOr5rvdkjfd
"There were five of us…187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhRcEhjGbkK
Then there were four…187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5eSueoLg8q
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlXudxDX903
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQeVflIPzS3
Date: March 17187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTc7gUK3bMv
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5jdi4NZbmu
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:187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZHPG1Uq4n0
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.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyqumuXGVh8
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?187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwxADb2Ivz4
Everyone, and no one.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE1hduygDBO
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBnrFd73ObO
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsdFeDPTF66
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,187Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtYh3rdcPtW
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
ns216.73.216.206da2
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