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