From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZMWp5glP5v
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwyO0t2hTj9
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6qyX1dpza0
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡch5fPCLXa5
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTVtzQJ2u01
And I became that voice.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO90N4vQkuL
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]67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK76FqLpIGt
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsPv5do6GV4
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPaWQyK7RIl
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAXsk73FBx7
“Thomas,67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtcaESX5bOC
I know you read my last text.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp3CV05jw8s
I know you were afraid.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG4zXUydIT5
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ45NY7FKWRa
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPGIg9gRXuH
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]67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnPJjgxffH7
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2vHRNFWKqA
He wasn’t even a person.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrkD6hTk2FC
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]67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl5iDK9EOWI
“The lake doesn’t forget.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡItnmK0onrf
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpKCZS3klDd
I’m going to go to him tonight.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZal78vFKoO
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]67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLEQ56UZvGy
"No one kills a shadow.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxjgUDS1bCb
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAMuTTwvBe1
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNuc3IorlyK
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgi1yZYscMD
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNPLCpPBdn6
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS7hhp7fBca
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoj2tQB6SFs
"If there is a killer, it's time.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVFizzhfwVV
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKlI0ZFg6Bo
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMhopFKTe6s
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTroXLTyrBZ
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrcL3ZstGDD
"There were five of us…67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡze1dLXQH8v
Then there were four…67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1167uAh83r
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk3wGZGnWF3
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5tRJQlay61
Date: March 1767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuxo0kkHrub
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjVPZK8vHhI
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:67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJxcCXl016d
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.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTJqomNosou
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?67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTBn8iPSB3x
Everyone, and no one.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtc5OdhLO42
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZwCW3AeMfO
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh0TRPByrIW
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,67Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHnzHjuowhJ
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
ns216.73.216.55da2
and then Add to home screen.