From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡspGbUggBlt
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡynhya2opDS
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgfDhUwp4QI
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrkoOlwFd7E
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWVRtBHx27V
And I became that voice.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKOugROvMDp
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]159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5HHqOl5UhX
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvM6GsUmBW5
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNn4sa3FNmo
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVohUoizdeT
“Thomas,159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0YkDGIlCdN
I know you read my last text.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq5iig4Rip9
I know you were afraid.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyjHpnjpiic
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ9Gy6JF2ds
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT1zU2ntB0Y
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]159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3IIf91dlek
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ76miDk6ORn
He wasn’t even a person.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHPlTp7rIzj
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]159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCIVhG6ATY5
“The lake doesn’t forget.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5U4b1Y9doL
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtNmeAv7SI7
I’m going to go to him tonight.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlgOZgKT9YJ
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]159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSa7SAbWoyN
"No one kills a shadow.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVV4yIxqqXm
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnEi77m6Q0l
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxPAqpCLMSA
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD0ITYwlZCj
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAHM2M1TZ1i
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUFpooNbNEr
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpqrPt8FvcL
"If there is a killer, it's time.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7SCb72nCPq
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuWnXlqY6LD
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0u7HGEUJOz
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr2SaAeOXDp
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAZXcRG1VhU
"There were five of us…159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3iQFaUSx8I
Then there were four…159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIW1c0Unrwp
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5dQuDHSTjG
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk2hnQlhZ6V
Date: March 17159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2FclmFXftG
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf8nfbZDbyb
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:159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡucK31c8qw6
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.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvqRjJo6NNr
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?159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtRsOGoCiVA
Everyone, and no one.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8EKURi6jum
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnOkwInbYZl
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6WFUdSpAtd
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHqhNVZjnSh
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
ns216.73.216.58da2
and then Add to home screen.