From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWhPXlpulwO
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA6eh1S2ScM
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUdV8R1FRDD
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1RIERSkqg7
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtBAolFbC1V
And I became that voice.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqj8iBIDbKA
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]29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl3MJNKaZwV
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWqziTzRtFD
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ16MYL2Z4V8
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUndAI5uawB
“Thomas,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡia9tk9ZDv5
I know you read my last text.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSO49fZsLma
I know you were afraid.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhSdhm8ddBD
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ2KYjPoF7T
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRBgBOdxPcG
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]29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu53ICPFaeS
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa08QTYzLsf
He wasn’t even a person.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyTRGDEfcs8
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]29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvf5WA4kzRj
“The lake doesn’t forget.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡigdub5A0FD
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTz3cMclRPd
I’m going to go to him tonight.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjd1Tn1LNBE
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]29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk08SK6x2Ce
"No one kills a shadow.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡesoDBiSeQm
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpc8JSPNYhe
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLJB7B2qSRK
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡriCoMHuEwP
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjvq3pJtWKP
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6G2KiEQjSS
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8bDyURPB4J
"If there is a killer, it's time.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjBAUqITaro
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbymsjpcQRx
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2eYOPPewVo
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhL3nZcGJjr
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPkCWb1mGWN
"There were five of us…29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDsH3x8hKjw
Then there were four…29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZt4RE93BvO
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSGdRszvqNo
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy3WSVDon0P
Date: March 1729Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi4k44Z6nPI
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1hzoq0vycQ
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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdERmXW6YpN
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYKgMhBHyed
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?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQWaCd0TmXj
Everyone, and no one.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡflPgI6j14O
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVuYIOemBQW
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0g0YKNzr1r
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡswdFgkjY0z
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
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