From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcOad7lW2Ve
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWRXejxyYZ5
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1gs48xYe0M
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdPa6TpJ05t
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3Yj5HOD4Sv
And I became that voice.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVCDcS6jikv
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]73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9tSIQhLFe3
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnjIBBTP1JO
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0PPD2xM6Zp
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxeSVDlrnXe
“Thomas,73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ6Y1u2sGMo
I know you read my last text.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLSh6BAkVIJ
I know you were afraid.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOSrQPaH5KL
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbbIPn6IGUF
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7vIRXxorHB
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]73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX96kQCAZq5
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQOqt9cVO3a
He wasn’t even a person.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpq2A8v1asI
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]73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCy5vhWFt9w
“The lake doesn’t forget.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBkVNiK9lWf
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡizC5zf4KCO
I’m going to go to him tonight.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtVZBWhlkhV
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]73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSwBtabkWEf
"No one kills a shadow.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx1ZTQJiEDp
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNYoRCscZ8C
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVvtR3nnP9h
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEK41oakzkO
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpwYe7C7ekh
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGAc742Qi5T
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUkS9zqk8T5
"If there is a killer, it's time.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzxdvhcPwe3
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu6Xzuu9kF0
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW3ObpG3yWm
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQEZmirPTiM
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr9Jf3VmFKC
"There were five of us…73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP1qiCMnU1d
Then there were four…73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk8bU1JZWq9
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9NiV1Cfk0M
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgErc9ufWFu
Date: March 1773Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5fKtPlLYpe
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNOq6lmauj6
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:73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDcc6UZXvnq
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.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbWCUYbNU5l
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?73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRG21FQnxQU
Everyone, and no one.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvvEgi0ssBd
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5vb6fmuAOa
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaKAmmAyu4D
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbx0vPLIYyY
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
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