Author's Note: Originally, I was just going to write a couple pages about Dinah's thoughts on everyone thinking she's crazy and finding Vincent, who believes her. But everyone seemed to like my last Bizenghast fic and wanted me to write more, and after reading over all the preview stuff, I had an idea for something longer. So, here ya go. I don't know how often I'll be able to update, and I might have to put it on hold from time to time, since I've got so much going on right now, but I'm expecting this one to be three or four parts and explore different stages in Dinah's "madness." Hope you enjoy!
Part One – Isolation
Prologue
"TRAGIC AUTO ACCIDENT IN DRURY" – five words that had turned Dinah's life upside down, printed out on a scrap of newsprint. They never did give her time to adjust, to let the meaning sink in. Less than a week after the terrible accident that killed her parents, Dinah was starting over with her aunt in a tiny, broken down town in Massachusetts – Bizenghast.
There was nothing in Bizenghast. Entering the town was like stepping through a time warp, waking up suddenly in the early 20th century, or at least the remains of it. It was the first town Dinah had ever seen without a movie theatre, without any shops, and without any new buildings. She had a telephone, but the object was an antique, a rotary phone, the likes of which she didn't believe anyone had made in many years. People had cars, but they seldom passed her way, and they, too, had a look about them of being ancient and on the verge of falling to pieces.
The antiquity of her surroundings was fascinating and frustrating. Dinah had always admired the artwork of the past, but Bizenghast was a faded photograph of what had been. The past was no longer an appealing curiosity to occupy her mind; it permeated the very air she breathed.
The very people were old; there were no children. Aunt Jane was always ordering Dinah outside, out of the house, outside, out from underfoot, outside, to amuse herself. Dinah hated outside. The air outside was colder and not just from the weather – which always felt like late fall. The quiet rustling of the wind, the hushed voices of children that weren't there, it all reminded her of a cemetery.
All these months later, Dinah finally knew the truth. In Bizenghast, the world was dead.