Behind the Shroud

Behind the Shroud

Chapter 3: The Whispering Wanderers

Sirius stared vapidly at the receding back of the Whispering Wanderer. It moved slowly, but purposefully, in a specific direction. But what caught Sirius's eye, in ways that made him shudder with an inexplicable sensation of déjà vu, was that the Wanderer carefully and meticulously maneuvered its way around and in-between the random assortment of lumps on the ground.

"He trudges so... as if his energy and body were just before the point of utter collapse. It looks as if his entire purpose was but to walk towards some unknown and unattainable point for all eternity."

Sirius continued to stare at the rapidly fading, yet slowly moving, silhouette of the Wanderer before him.

"I wonder if he is aware of his destination or if he is as lost as I..." Sirius shook his head in revolution. "Surely I have nothing in common with such a hideous, hopeless wretch!"

Just as quickly as he had been struck into his reverie by his unexpected encounter, Sirius snapped back into action.

"I must keep moving. Standing and staring after some unknown wanderer will, without doubt, accomplish nothing. There is yet much that is left unseen... my eyes shall be ever watchful."

With that monotone declaration of purpose made, Sirius lurched forward. After a few steps he regained his habitual, shuffling gate. After a few more steps he realized that he was unintentionally following the same path taken by the Wanderer, now merely a steady sliver of dark gray among the ever-sifting colorless spectrum.

"Why shouldn't I follow it? Who knows when I shall happen across another living creature again? It could potentially be folly to forge ahead in some random direction without any form of guidance or bearing. In addition, reason would have it that a living being, which holds the appearance of one who has been accustomed to this dank atmosphere for quite some time, would eventually find its way to further points of importance... And it did seem fairly sure of the direction in which it wished to travel..."

These justifications eased Sirius's protesting mind. The revulsion he initially and instinctively felt towards the Wanderer remained just as strong. However, his need for guidance and purpose was stronger still. So Sirius followed, his pace matching that of his "guide".

"The distant murmurings of that... man's whisperings are remarkably soothing to my ears... even more so than these ramblings of my own. It seems almost melodic in its fashion. If only the music was made by something other than that... creature..."

Sirius continued to follow the Whispering Wanderer, whispering his thoughts continually to himself in much the same manner. If a rational person ever were to overhear him, he surely would be thought to be raving. He meandered onward, rasping to himself and, at the same time, straining his ears to hear the murmur of the Wanderer before him.

In time, other figures became visible through the haze. The murmuring became a steady drone. The creatures never neared each other; they held their distance to assure that any other living being remained obscured by the gray.

"The persistent buzzing is certainly a refreshing change. Alas, that I am sure that those shadowy beings in the distance are naught but more creatures like to the one I earlier confronted."

The humming rang in Sirius's ears. It was growing stronger, steadier, the further he traveled. Ever and anon, Sirius would notice a figure drifting a might too near for his comfort. Upon such realization he would immediately make the appropriate course corrections so to assure that the Whispering Wanderer would remain at a peaceful, ambiguous distance.

"...It may simply be my imagination, but it seems as if those wanderers were attempting to stay as far from me as I from them. Why, that is ridiculous. I saw the look in that man's eyes... if one could go so far as to call him a man, and there was no more recognition of his surroundings in them as there would be in a dead man's eyes. At least none of them have come close enough for me to catch another bone chilling glance..."

Sirius would constantly speak to himself, as he had become accustomed to doing, to fill the silence. Yet the silence was no longer so pristine, nor even was it truly silence any more. If he concentrated on his own rambling voice for too long, he would begin to ache for the humming, so to assure himself that there was something, anything, more out there. But if a similar amount of time eclipsed without his thoughts being manifested into noise, as meaningless as that noise might be, his head would begin to pound with the volume of built-up suppressed expression. The harsh buzzing also accompanied recollections of Sirius's troubling encounter. The dirty, contaminated feeling such memories evoked seemed to attach themselves onto every single hazy figure.

"...With the figures come the sound... and, by the same token, with the figures goes the sound. I have, apparently, developed such an extreme attachment to the incessant rasping that I cannot willingly leave it behind. Yet their sources fill me with such revulsion that I cannot stand to be near them... My instincts are tearing my mind in two."

Sirius did not know just how accurate his idle thoughts had been. Such was the curse of the Whispering Wanderers, in the lands behind and within the Veil of Death. The madness, first invoked by the deathly silence and stillness of the atmosphere, was reshaped, strengthened, and deepened by the direct contradiction of the two most basic demands placed upon them: the need for companionship and the need for security. A Wanderer has no need for rest, no need for nourishment, no need for water. There needs are purely psychological, and their subconscious is in a continual state of destruction and tumult.

The initial silence wets the developing Wanderer's need for companionship. In time, the whisperings come to represent that companionship. However, the Wanderer requires a feeling of peace and safety, the same feeling that is threatened at the sight of other Wanderers. This is what the Whispering Wanderers are; a walking contradiction. The very thing that completes their first need shatters their second. The fate of a Whispering Wanderer is nothing short of an eternity of tormented, incomplete madness.

"...Perhaps if I simply pretend that they are not there... If I convince myself that they are nothing more than yet another wisp of fog, then I may be content... at least until I discover whatever it is that I am looking for. I will simply look through them... They will not be there... They will not even exist..."

And so Sirius Black became a Whispering Wanderer.