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Burn Horizon Burn (complete novel by David S. Partamyan, aka Devinoir)

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Devinoir:
 Hello everyone.
 I have decided to post my first novel here as a tribute and an appreciation for all the motivation and support the people of this website have given me.
 The novel is called Burn Horizon Burn, and is a semi-autobiographic mystery/thriller/drama about a twisted mind and a twisted relationship.

Devinoir:
BURN HORIZON BURN






It all comes down to the things you'd do for love. It's always the past you want to change. The things you'd do, they're done in that wonderful make-believe world of "if". Possibilities rise and fall like sand castles, like towers made of cards, destined to be destroyed by the cold wind of reality.
All things pass. Sooner or later you die, and then things cease to matter. Till then, you wait. You'd wait till graduation, till you get a job, till the weekend, till your kids grow up, till your wife falls asleep, et cetera, et cetera. And then you die.
But before you finally kick the box, you're in that limbo between want and world. And there's always that masochistic pleasure of looking back and building these sand castles, meanwhile - wishing for death, and not really meaning it.
You can have a porn movie for a personal life, a soap opera for a living.
There is no one answer as to how you should burn your life.
You could die a naive virgin as a priest, for instance.
Or have an overdose of heroin and die in an ambulance, as some rockstar wanna-bes do.
You could die in a war as a soldier who doesn't know what he's fighting for.
You could die old and useless, or young and full of life.
It doesn't matter how you die, as long as it's not overtly humiliating or grotesque. Even then, you won't be the one to care about that.
What matters is how you live.
They all wanted to die at some point. Except for Red, or at least that's what she says.
They all dreamed big, talked big, they lived in this little world of shadows. Their own little universe.
It all comes down to what you'll do for love.
Red, she never did a thing for love. Too proud, too egotistic. All Black would do was just talk. Blue, he's the one to act, to struggle.
Poor bastard.

Devinoir:
CHAPTER I: BLUE



Cold wind blew over the withered city.
He just stood there, on the roof, watching the sunset, unconsciously shuddering. His thoughts were far away, hidden deep inside those dark, blank eyes.
He hadn't shaved for a week. It showed. There were dark circles under his eyes, he looked sullen and unhealthy. Even so, he was quite handsome, but little did he care about that.
He could hear the sirens far away, down in the slums. A distant assumption that someone died. Who cares? Certainly not the dead guy. Certainly not Blue.
After some point in his life it all had become irrelevant. Maybe there was no point.
Maybe it was Red. Probably it was her.
All Blue would do was drink. Not like Black, not to the point of puking sensation, or as Black put it, "to the black hole of revelation", nor would he smoke like Black did, nor would he do drugs, or be as willing to "give up" love and romance and have them replaced with sluts and casual sex, as Black was clearly (and bitterly) doing.
Either way, Blue was set on the path of self-destruction.
He felt it. He did not care.



1.


When he went in it was dark, it smelled of emptiness and desolation.
Home sweet home... or at least the sweet smell of the rotting walls was still there.
A flick of the switch and the cold white light of the lampshade illuminated the little gray room with a single army bed, a small wooden chair and a cracked wooden table. The little gray room Blue called his apartment.
Underneath the bed was a suitcase with all of Blue's belongings.
It was cold. You could clearly hear the wind gusting outside, and the chaos of traffic.
Sometimes a scream could wake you up in the middle of the night. Or gunshots. Usually both.
Blue sighed and locked the door. He just stood there, in front of the door, for a while. Head lowered and lips pursed, he was thinking.
Black said he'd made a deal with the devil. He said that as they shook hands, with his eyes never leaving Blue's. He said it was not Blue he meant, but the little hungry evil thing inside himself.
As Blue looked into Black's eyes, those devious voidlike eyes, he realized he knew this "devil" Black meant only too well.
It was this "devil" that betrayed him once and left him to suffer and die. Blue had no doubt its plans had not much changed.
This "devil" had no boundaries. No morale. It was made up of pure will, determination; its sole purpose was to reach the goal set. What was to be done to achieve this goal mattered little.
And as Blue looked into Black's eyes, he could clearly see that "devil" smirking in his best friend's pupils.
It's back. It's got a goal.
And as Blue sat behind his wooden table and put his face in his hands, he realized the only person to blame for that was himself.


2.


It was Red he was after. Always her.
And somehow, by some evil coincidence (perhaps it was no coincidence), Black's "devil" emerged mostly when it was Blue between him and the lady.
And sometimes Blue thought that what Black's "devil" was really after was his, Blue's, ultimate destruction.
Blue shuddered at the thought.


3.


He spoke to Red that night.
He said that Black wanted to meet her.
He said that Black'd decided to come clean... or at least he'd said so.
He said that he thought that Black'd gone nuts.
...he's got a one way ticket...
He said that Black wanted to say goodbye.
They laughed.
Goodbyes are one thing Black was quite generous about. Especially when it concerned Red. As the saying goes, if Red got a coin for every goodbye she got from Black... she'd end up with a lot of coins.
They were lovers once - Blue and Red. It had hurt Black, but what they had now hurt him deeper.
They were friends.

Devinoir:
CHAPTER II: RED



Sprawled on the soft green sofa, she stared at the wall.
It was raining.
Her beautiful, pale face with full red lips and somehow foxlike hazel eyes bore the expression of bored dismay.
It was raining, and rain always made her think of Black.
She did not like to think of Black.
Thinking of him was like thinking of cancer, or AIDS, or dying orphans... boringly tragic.
Blue, on the other hand, was a whole other story. Blue was easy.
Blue had obvious human emotions. If hurt, he would cry. If happy, he would smile.
Simple. Easy.
Not like that despicable Black.
Never honest. An obscured, vague image, he would pretend to understand her, but he would be simply manipulating.
Full of sorrow, hate, poison and bitterness, Black was just the person Red would rather not think about right now.
She was waiting for a call.
A call from Gold.
She might even love him, if the price was right. For now, well, he was just hers.
Her pale fingers ran through her dark curly hair. It smelled of sin and delight, and in these tangles was hidden a truly dark mind
The trick was to be a whore and a priestess, fire and ice, affection and indifference, all at once. To be close, yet far away.
Deadly.
The white walls of her downtown apartment were almost completely bare, except for a few paintings she brought from her travels.
She was in a place she called "The Green Room", for the furniture the color of faded emeralds and the few plants she had there. Roses, mostly. Red, red roses.
This was the place where she almost gave in to Black, where he begged on his knees as some cheap slut, this was where he came as close to being open as he'd ever come.
And this was also the place where Blue cried after being rejected by her, this was the place where she gave in to most of her boyfriends (boy that's a lot), and where she sat curled up by the window with a phone in her hand. It was Black she mostly talked with.
So much time wasted on that fark-up.
She uttered a silent short laugh, much like the mild whisper of a courtesan's dress.
A call. It was Gold. Gold, Goldie, Goldie... poor bastard, you don't know what you're in for, do you?
You're in for your farking life, Goldie. You're in for your goddam soul.
But a dinner will do for now. A dinner and something extra. A ring. And it better be good, and she better see you've spent some big bucks on that s**t.
You better not ask what you'll get in return, Goldie... but still, I'll answer.
You'll get your life farked, Goldie. farked rough and hard and with no mercy whatsoever.
Sweet deals are made of this. Red knows how to get those deals.
Red knows how to use people.
She knows how to get people to need her.
How to get them addicted to her as one might get an addiction to heroin or cocaine or those pills Black used to take.
How to get men suffocating for her, for her smile, for her touch.
How to get sister darkness to wash over their eyes as they saw her.
And oh the pleasure to know that as soon as she playfully left their lives, they were over. Then came the real addictions, and booze, and sluts, and the bottomless pit of degradation.
Joy, she smiled. Oh that evil joy.
And she laughed as it rained, but somewhere deep inside the thought of Black still lingered.
She would meet him tomorrow, that evil motherfarker.
But for now, there was Gold to take care of.
And he better be good.
Her time was too precious to waste.

Devinoir:
CHAPTER III: BLACK



Rain fell as he wept.
A few bottles lay beside him. Rum for today, and he was saving vodka for tomorrow.
The rain stopped. Soon after came the sunset.
No trace of tears remained on his face as he got up from behind his desk and lit a cigarette, watching the sun glide slowly to the crimson horizon.
Then the shadows fell. It was dark once more.
Just the way Black liked it.
The city changed. So did the crowd that filled its streets. Masks fell and shattered like porcelain.
With the cigarette between his teeth, Black grabbed his coat and was out, leaving a trail of smoke behind.
And as he walked down those dark alleys, he started to whistle.
There was a faint hoarseness in that whistle, and as the light fell on his face one would surely note the pallor on his tanned skin, and the dark circles under his brooding eyes.
As he entered the bar, he smiled. It smelled of cigarettes and beer and perfume, just the perfect mix for the plugged-in  blues that wailed in the reddish darkness of “The Broken Heartz' Club”.
As he took his place, that old place always kept for him, in front of the barkeep; there was one word he mouthed -
"Absynthe."
 - before going back to his old friend silence.
The black touch of absynthe burned his mouth, his throat, and for a blessed moment killed all the thoughts he had.
Leaving only fire.
Then it was gone. Black's experience with alcohol was far too vast for him to fall for anything.
Another gulp, another blessing.
A blessing that this time Blue wasn't here, waiting...
With no real haste Black glanced around, and an invisible trigger in his muscular body relaxed.
He sat still, ordering drink after drink.
Drinks... the only thing he spoiled himself with... literally.
Well, of course, there were fights, and whores, and sleepless nights - killed with way too many sleeping pills, there was a brief period of LSD, there were the constant cigars and cigarettes... but he was tough, he could handle it, no problem at all.
Or as Purple would've put it - "No problem-o".
Or as Noire would've put it - "Utter bulls**t".
Either way, Black enjoyed life, but life did not enjoy Black very much.
As he glided deeper into the night filled with blues and absynthe, he smelled Violet's perfume.
Persistent lady.
Sure enough, in a moment she was in the barstool next to Black, looking at him with a venomous mix of emotions better not mixed together.
Black paid no attention, but kept watching her out of the corner of his eye.
There was silence for quite a while. You could hear the whisper of the recorder underneath the low-key blues, and you could hear the heavens growling outside.
"Well?" she said at last.
"I'm fine." Black softly answered.
He wouldn't look at her. He was dog-tired of everything, and Violet was way up on that list.
"Just look at you, Black. You're farking up yourself, and you're farking up everyone around you. Please, please listen to me."
Black looked at Violet at last, and what he saw hurt him. What he saw in her eyes was something Red would see in his own eyes. Nothing farks a person up more than a blend of love, desperation, humiliation, hate, misery and endless forgiveness.
"Teal, mix something up for the lady." he said to the barkeep.
The barkeep gave a short nod.
Black looked into Violet's eyes again. This time (maybe way too much absynthe was at fault) he really saw her, not as one of his persistent girlfriends, but as a woman, as a human. He saw her olive-colored skin, her sleek black hair, the beautiful curve of her lips, her gem-like green eyes, and the perfection of her body, of her taste.
She's mine, he thought. She's mine, and I just won't give a fark about it... déjà vu.
"I'm listening" he finally said.
"I know exactly what you're doing" her tone was hurt, her voice was low, and he could tell by the gleam in her eyes that she was on the verge of tears.
fark.
"Do you?"
"You're obviously killing yourself, that's what you're doing."
"Your drink, miss." It was a red, strong blend Black momentarily recognized. He gave Teal a short, grateful nod.
"Try it." Black told Violet.
"You're not listening to me, Black, I..."
"Please."
She did.
"I'm sorry, Violet. It's farked up, I know. Especially what I did to you... I shouldn't have, I regret leaving you... alone, in the dark..."
It's quite easy to get a woman who loves you to drink.
"But I realize I was wrong."
And this is how you hit the bottom.
"Drink up, Violet. And let's go home..."
Rain was starting up again. Someone threw a dime into the jukebox, and the lonely sounds of rock'n'roll filled “The Broken Heartz' Club”.
“...together.”
And this new look in her eyes, one of dim recognition, the look that said she wasn't deceived but badly wanted to be...
But it was raining again, and rain made him think of Red.
He didn't want to think of Red.
He couldn't stand the loneliness of the night and the fierceness of the rain alone.
He farked Violet that night. Or what was left of him did.
And later that night, she lay curled up in his bed as Black sat beside a window, watching the moonless winter night, and smoking, and drinking.
Early in the morning, when Black was already and still asleep, she got dressed and left, with tears streaming down her cheeks and never looking back.
He awoke to find himself alone, and there was a dawning sense of self-loathing welling up in the shadows of his mind.
He lay there, his body tense. This was the day it all had to come to an end.

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