From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSe1jKMyv8o
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg2LuFvDRvM
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA0nM1LJVLD
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfgP4KLdLVo
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQwWsqgYsEL
And I became that voice.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMpUQwA1hpn
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]72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ99CeCM2UeB
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWKObhuyaCe
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd3MYauoKx7
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkXoPam2h5z
“Thomas,72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxm9t7GzMpO
I know you read my last text.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡteXL0KmVQz
I know you were afraid.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs2Razjjknf
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCm0gjR8Ljo
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3ME35DHXt2
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]72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbZ4qKwSbM0
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjMy4MYGMDT
He wasn’t even a person.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP1eS6MUtch
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]72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjTihvr7vPP
“The lake doesn’t forget.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx4pVRggssP
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaxLgp6KCix
I’m going to go to him tonight.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA9sofM4ndx
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]72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdWTU2lgs9M
"No one kills a shadow.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF5Z4PRGFZl
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQpkOrLL7hF
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4lvIoV2l1t
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwB3VBr1pID
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEXlZqWNNOe
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj1ZGRBsbj5
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB7sp8xlEYJ
"If there is a killer, it's time.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ1805rfjvG
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf5cdD5yrJ2
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh02QzQvceK
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuLbnypqSlN
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCQcWW7SFL1
"There were five of us…72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2o6KnyNrYg
Then there were four…72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjXKPLzFRuQ
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSVVpueOIHj
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ8eCTa9yL6
Date: March 1772Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡADkFrpWUSX
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡexhOiHflkW
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:72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4RCwDJwRTB
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.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvQXSAA7g8f
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?72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbsmUPNbf5T
Everyone, and no one.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr6NauKBriN
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt1lXxjCjdx
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS03APiIdD9
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCTt7rUARPN
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
ns216.73.216.6da2
and then Add to home screen.