From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrrUm9EEdrA
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPMCFvsVGk4
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGsKPhCQB8M
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdzA8bJ3rGk
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ8CWok0GLR
And I became that voice.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdltA3bGj3p
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]197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBg7ZvqNsWs
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyLnKPnTl9Z
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt4A25iS5Yn
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGbFzw1gNig
“Thomas,197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWoSLE6yKHf
I know you read my last text.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfZJOSbb8ea
I know you were afraid.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBIIvFmK2Eb
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡChhV7g3job
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzBvX0zuOBI
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]197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr9pkrGv1SC
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡULilfeP6fj
He wasn’t even a person.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7A8Kox6wwz
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]197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyTddHUd4ex
“The lake doesn’t forget.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKREh1hKLVY
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtRlr4LReuj
I’m going to go to him tonight.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnYIxK7ugD4
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]197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPhZWQ1o1gH
"No one kills a shadow.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO17Vw7jF4N
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOe0Yo2QEG0
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLZjScxEqHr
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgSL5bEpYjI
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ46PGbSlnOG
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXmtI9TdJfG
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNZr8xLsLg3
"If there is a killer, it's time.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfOqmoLVuiW
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv3MzvESwSQ
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxlEnSCMj2k
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcGkk0RYtyy
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ2m4iOdBAL
"There were five of us…197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw2hBo3EgBO
Then there were four…197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQESp8zXtgZ
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbatPGvHz53
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOnmuGPCIG9
Date: March 17197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIA6gCaptLg
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv1SWvtoPJO
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:197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGhV63r18cP
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.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIfK3EELZlB
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?197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW3Av133VD3
Everyone, and no one.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1TfOHgHkvY
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJn9AkUIMou
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3dEWKeyjgg
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa7DxfsE5oO
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
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