From Athan's Papers and Leonard's Notebooks218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJJTRvJZsGa
✦ [Undated scrapbook - in unclear handwriting, signed: A.]218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrWAAMJAA48
“Every time they rejected what I wrote, they said, 'This doesn't sound like us.'218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTNF0DEkm3k
But they never said, 'This doesn't sound like the truth.'218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvDdxYbAdO9
So I gave them the truth, and asked only that it be said in an anonymous voice.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXfyjPqaqJg
And I became that voice.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXN8cCcSbH6
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]218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2P4paHnLtw
“Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing anything. I'm just covering up the sentences others write with my own voice.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzcqBqz1ldR
Athan wasn't a name... he was a gap.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡljOKSB5vJ3
And we all inhabited it.”
✦ [Letter not sent – folded inside a worn book]218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlPbH91Wivm
“Thomas,218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡewMXioVc7q
I know you read my last text.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuTzsyaMF9e
I know you were afraid.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiMXnzxaQU7
But not of me… but of yourself, because you know I said what you couldn’t.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3Qx2KwbQhh
If I die, don’t publish anything else under Athan’s name.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ0QD0TQDkM
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]218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI2oCbaa74q
“Athan wasn’t a murderer.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKVQfDBn7I7
He wasn’t even a person.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaGrPHuRPVY
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]218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxZemH2OfTG
“The lake doesn’t forget.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIxhpRmOZUi
Water doesn’t drown those who tell the truth, but those who have no one to listen.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHGkm1HxNSQ
I’m going to go to him tonight.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEZ3fgXcnC1
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]218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu4QuS3jfct
"No one kills a shadow.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEwGQ9K0cua
But a shadow can decide to follow no one anymore."
Letters from the Circle218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv2wUBqzJ9h
✦ [Letter from Laura Quinn – in ornate handwriting, dated months before the incident]218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwhJiogfGtZ
"I thought we were sheltering behind Athan.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgcwuiDYTHT
But the truth is, we were hiding behind him, the less we felt.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4KXRMkyJ4Z
I didn't like Leonard much, but he was the only one who wanted to give the Shadow a face.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0tQGSHGRFS
I was afraid that face would be seen."
✦ [Letter from Thomas Reilly – typed, appended to an unpublished article]218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzzMPByXAVT
"If there is a killer, it's time.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ9JwP4b4K0
Athan was an experiment… an abstract idea.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlPdejLsM9v
But Leonard, with his stupid idealism, wanted it to become a tangible reality.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡziqCryetmb
And because we don't have the power to give life, we did what cowards do:218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQSwm3QuW2E
We silenced him, made his death seem like a personal decision."
✦ [Short note from James Holloway – in pencil, just a few words]218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKzF45Q3umG
"There were five of us…218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7WN5Y3eqPw
Then there were four…218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB5ntVmEWqC
Then there were even fewer."
✦ Investigator Ella Moore's Final Report218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSqgOykTMHa
File: Death of Leonard Wilkes – Cascade Lake, New York218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaQGE12dLj9
Date: March 17218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC1vA9TbOue
Reporter: Department of Special Literary Investigations
🕯️ Narrative Analysis:218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqo3lNS9cdT
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:218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgoipL5bV9z
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.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdahGI5dCRO
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?218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9rBtp9ZAn4
Everyone, and no one.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuymVfSh5Gl
The circle killed Leonard with its silence, with its cowardice, by making the writing a wall, not a mirror.
📝 Final word:218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeME3XcQ2PD
Ella wrote:
"Athan may have been just a name... but Leonard was a human being.218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGq4ySnYx1N
And in the world of literature, when a human being is killed so that the name remains,218Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8Q9dVXnD9h
we no longer write... we bury."
✦ End of the novel✦
ns216.73.216.24da2
and then Add to home screen.