From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHZcDIWoan7
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbFFNeo0bWA
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvojvamNYd2
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmb4WdDN9No
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3gi9zP0lSY
And I became that voice.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXVS4rjZ7bS
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]184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY8v4LfWbMg
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjQ1P3JRrMp
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKJJedbRwc9
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIABfSNrxOm
“Thomas,184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2CvDtnXvEp
I know you read my last text.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR62qfsUTDQ
I know you were afraid.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZAb2BycbJS
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFqamcfiN12
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡartQPCT6KC
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]184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ38Sy1PbyeZ
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4woFYGaUay
He wasn’t even a person.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1OXnlAkaJd
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]184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz0J283pTUU
“The lake doesn’t forget.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDdA8g5ZepE
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3zVN8h4fI4
I’m going to go to him tonight.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvh2ovLUnam
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]184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhJy1joBYZf
"No one kills a shadow.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7bFEXukcff
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMKnowWF3Yr
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGj4zr30EE6
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYrFPiWN3lt
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7dQskwU69N
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzdcn9wYTq0
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5jQ50JS7KP
"If there is a killer, it's time.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPEH1fGGgfo
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8NchsVMzN2
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfD1lZYZ7Bm
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLhjZ8eXjlm
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡth4UO9PYb9
"There were five of us…184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcZHiD6YS7g
Then there were four…184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsoX1hhX2xY
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiOqPH3yrU3
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFAZIqgyLUG
Date: March 17184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhS4KRHYcH1
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtFjZpzkmRn
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:184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzRewtppQ1o
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.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbFs5C2Jjrk
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?184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb1lEF96VA7
Everyone, and no one.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWkVaM4TmvN
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhnpkOIe5ro
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKszbSR4eS2
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,184Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYLNqGFSGGD
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
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