From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlvX2c3biWj
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbMlzxc0ylK
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAs9BKRnX6v
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR01a0cMZnJ
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLxqlOk2U5Z
And I became that voice.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVPzOp8JC0I
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]93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLVhmToqLWB
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHvvL8FDVGf
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOLtMQXv4CX
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHd08qIulAZ
“Thomas,93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeYLWRDjz8T
I know you read my last text.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCMpyethGQ2
I know you were afraid.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZmC7Qhd1Q9
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEEFOHC2Whj
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlaoKUACuMZ
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]93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡia7w9Y6djL
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpeES3hdf0N
He wasn’t even a person.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX75U9rYlMt
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]93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBVPJgYlj62
“The lake doesn’t forget.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMQ1PF0cwLj
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzowi4CcUUQ
I’m going to go to him tonight.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxQsdjtmHn0
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]93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0GP66jxVDa
"No one kills a shadow.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY7slnA7DJ9
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ2RCf1pXIz
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU5VSq4TJrk
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8VdFGyIDKx
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSCc3DAELHS
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj3It6bQ4bq
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡic5y0LmE4y
"If there is a killer, it's time.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk06VkCZ2fh
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt9FIbCvbXG
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVB5vLGgoaL
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSl3FSapVlk
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLAgZKZGylb
"There were five of us…93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWP24OSulZj
Then there were four…93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNyDevoeQ2a
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl1TjVAXKK5
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJq0eTW0WmV
Date: March 1793Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb83eJZf7Fg
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU5bsncMZbm
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:93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuTTOfihJQZ
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.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdGpQZeuc3L
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?93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjjJMp3vznb
Everyone, and no one.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6ckFmAetLz
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPSSpVueBqw
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmSXQ0E7NZg
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkZlAEnktwy
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
ns216.73.216.14da2
and then Add to home screen.