From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeibhpkcncA
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS8yVvHUDL9
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj9gH90cP1C
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7qvCEgXXvg
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0ETgFHICsM
And I became that voice.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAbIRIb7VfS
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]78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbNCyhxX1ZR
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqdQvlaQuCD
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1sqUpK49wb
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjDZJQ5bMSZ
“Thomas,78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl4ZPpPfJLx
I know you read my last text.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDhEphprE2s
I know you were afraid.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSlxmdG63kw
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkTFGuWTpNp
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG7uJHc7VsJ
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]78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDvZqhcavd8
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuE9PUr80n7
He wasn’t even a person.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtcWqKDc5rc
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]78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe1pvqL5CR0
“The lake doesn’t forget.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSj9XCYhsYC
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCCbCMOBdem
I’m going to go to him tonight.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0gFMnVesLK
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]78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh8SegFNnvU
"No one kills a shadow.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5gSfdp6NTk
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrBCkyG8DfW
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG0ojUUOkL5
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJevNRXejig
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2bXm0vxtQn
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5m79LwqHDf
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhzGv9GPgmq
"If there is a killer, it's time.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC1gvPCXhlC
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPtKt4ZzVaP
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOD8UGUnS9J
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5NPTbwsC8M
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWPbrxD6Vrc
"There were five of us…78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmlrAnSkPx3
Then there were four…78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4HW0Wxp7Kj
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkxn620nnZj
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX8SBeGxNR2
Date: March 1778Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWJDns1thUQ
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT1sChI4Od8
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:78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLMu7h1mzFt
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.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgKfRfTu4WI
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?78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWIpBeKbyfr
Everyone, and no one.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM2Sl0eRWEr
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZREusp92Uv
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSkwRgeuwmS
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,78Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY8MXRoAKVK
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
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