From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrgV6PxIj9c
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAWVUmFmwpp
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡexCLqnQUuM
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuXqzl1cfll
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFQPBQdyfm0
And I became that voice.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKxYCqSvsmw
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]33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXwrkJ8tkn6
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6VXGSTIF5q
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4AJ773RVX6
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCt1MwbDkVJ
“Thomas,33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQvIdEB06eK
I know you read my last text.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsbUT3Tuky3
I know you were afraid.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXwlLCTUALN
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCb47S1pwGa
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIRuTXAWziy
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]33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyVznIxvnu3
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9XkU4j8bKr
He wasn’t even a person.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4oYMlEWnSa
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]33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWtwymirdsH
“The lake doesn’t forget.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPywupgrkSW
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgYniT1sGQl
I’m going to go to him tonight.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwBqMw7w5ui
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]33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAdaZvdZDgG
"No one kills a shadow.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIA8tR9wxz8
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVkmoBmUUPV
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVoI9tv73fb
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLM7ZmZx1YG
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ11YsX7gQrg
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXhj80i2dOD
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgEI9LxvTpx
"If there is a killer, it's time.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHA8NLtufuh
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7x83DhRLuS
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQAPAlNlUo2
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQBj8AEoRrC
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkATgHs3RrH
"There were five of us…33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgj6iOyeW3t
Then there were four…33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBgEWmPiCdL
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHEemovgAV4
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP2ZHTFyMeE
Date: March 1733Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3F3KJVIHb1
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU2IHg1oIgZ
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:33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz9mUNz5u6x
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.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡglCQAuIvoi
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?33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrBvTeUc5ms
Everyone, and no one.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNOJ8pO7WpH
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIrqTJsA0dC
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡViuajmUiod
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL4o1vCFbej
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
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