From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdIdEl2Fp4H
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIvLRKETPlk
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcMWkjkjHC7
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTRmxMomkcE
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD78y2TR0sH
And I became that voice.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQk2zknLXhU
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]57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdxR4AIwIA4
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdBSNvhga7U
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2otRYJ1TrA
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAnaMgWCsS6
“Thomas,57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyaB7nunxyQ
I know you read my last text.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPIkjXZoGBP
I know you were afraid.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0OXE1drRLu
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKDhYKf24iH
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiVUDaPA9uZ
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]57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ60J95KwUHq
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpFfvGbHDvN
He wasn’t even a person.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuauOpRTWGH
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]57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtf6PwxZmJP
“The lake doesn’t forget.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhwZCROy086
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡseRAfYzznT
I’m going to go to him tonight.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfqA4c3mSBk
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]57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaYIvoKV3Xf
"No one kills a shadow.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBb2Mih2oJ6
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXHBqdcAnan
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfMKZ466NK3
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWOO75ntVbO
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfPaos9EetK
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0XuQV3wWpP
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡflkUL5t4nd
"If there is a killer, it's time.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZPGOxmegDd
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPq43KMs7Pn
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOtmqsvWU4P
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTET6FR7qaL
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX1LMueoe6X
"There were five of us…57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlXNCqbShaA
Then there were four…57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPnNjzuXUpf
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK95ARP3KVz
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡryJymqSUTh
Date: March 1757Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOLhyoH0kUF
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7iegWniXgJ
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:57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVQI9rePLA9
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.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7UrIq8SqM2
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?57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjTo7OjDxTG
Everyone, and no one.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfJNfEUFoAe
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSNWrH5XSlX
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV2W4srIvsG
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHud5DmImeI
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
ns216.73.216.26da2
and then Add to home screen.