Chapter 1: Rebirth and Resurrection
The first thing Ranbeer registered wasn't the unfamiliar softness of the mattress beneath him, nor the odd, faded floral pattern on the duvet. It was the grief. A profound, aching emptiness that wasn't his own, yet settled deep in his chest like a physical weight. He blinked, the ceiling above a stuccoed landscape he'd never seen. Where was his minimalist apartment? His smart home hub?
He pushed himself up, the sudden rush of blood to his head making him sway. The body felt… different. Taller, broader in the shoulders, and the hands that ran through his hair – thicker, coarser than he remembered. He swung his legs off the bed, his bare feet meeting a cool, wooden floor, not the plush carpet of his old bedroom. A glance around the room confirmed it: this wasn't home. A clunky, beige alarm clock glowed 7:00 AM on a wooden nightstand. On the wall opposite, a large, framed photograph showed a smiling man and woman, their faces etched with a warmth that felt like a punch to the gut. An unfamiliar, yet deeply painful, pang shot through him. Joshua Grant's parents.
A surge of fragmented memories, like static on an old TV, flickered through his mind. University. UCLA. A graduation cap tossed into the air. Laughter. And then, a hospital. White sheets. Silence. A lawyer's hushed voice. The herbal store.
"What the...?" he mumbled, his voice deeper, slightly accented, definitely not his. He stumbled towards the full-length mirror on the closet door. Staring back was a stranger. A handsome, albeit pale, stranger with dark, slightly dishevelled hair and tired eyes. This was Joshua Grant, twenty-five years old. And the calendar taped to the mirror confirmed it with stark clarity: July 1992.
Panic, cold and sharp, cut through the residual grief. Nineteen ninety-two? No internet in his pocket. No global connectivity. No easy flight home. He was trapped. Trapped in a body that wasn't his, in a time that felt ancient, and apparently, freshly bereaved.
He found Joshua's clothes laid out on a chair – a faded denim shirt, loose-fitting jeans. So different from the slim-fit tech-wear he preferred. As he dressed, his hands fumbled with the buttons, an awkwardness he hadn't experienced since childhood. Downstairs, the house was quiet, almost eerily so. The scent of stale coffee and something faintly medicinal hung in the air. He found a legal document on the kitchen counter, its language formal and chilling: "…upon the passing of Mr. and Mrs. Grant… the property at 145 Sycamore Lane and the 'Root & Bloom' Herbal Apothecary…"
The herbal store. He remembered that now, dimly, from the fragmented memories. A legacy. A responsibility. He, Ranbeer, a man whose life revolved around digital screens and high-stakes investments, now owned a shop full of dried leaves and ancient remedies. The irony was palpable. He, an average science graduate from India who'd struggled to land any job, let alone a good one, found himself suddenly owning property and a business in Los Angeles. His past life had been a series of small, unsatisfying gigs – a data entry clerk here, a temporary assistant there. His only real "hire" had been for odd jobs he could find, just to make ends meet. The contrast was jarring.
He stepped outside into the bright California morning. The air felt cleaner, somehow. A clunky Ford pickup sat in the driveway. No self-driving cars here. He took a deep, shaky breath. The grief was still there, a dull ache, but now a new sensation mingled with it: a bewildering sense of possibility. He knew the future. He knew the tech boom that was coming. He knew the movies that would be blockbusters, the actors who would become legends.
As he walked towards the street, a small sign caught his eye. It was hand-painted, slightly peeling, nailed to a wooden post near the curb: "Root & Bloom – Herbal Apothecary. Est. 1965." He looked at the modest storefront next to Joshua's house, its windows displaying jars of unfamiliar contents. This was his new reality. Joshua Grant, UCLA graduate, orphaned, and the unlikely proprietor of a small herbal store in the heart of Los Angeles. This wasn't the Hollywood he'd imagined, but it was certainly a beginning. The game had begun for a man who, in his past life, had barely been a player at all.
The stench of mothballs and musty air was the first thing that hit Ranbeer when he finally ventured into the "Root & Bloom" Herbal Apothecary. Jars filled with unidentifiable dried flora lined ancient wooden shelves, a thick layer of dust clinging to everything. The cash register, a monstrous metal contraption, looked like it belonged in a museum. This wasn't just a small business; it was a relic.
"This won't do," he muttered, running a hand over a cracked counter. Joshua's grief still resonated faintly, a somber echo in his new consciousness, but Ranbeer's modern, business-savvy mind was already firing on all cylinders. He knew the dot-com bubble was years away, but the stock market in the mid-90s was about to enter an unprecedented bull run. He needed capital, and he needed it fast.
He spent the next two days pouring over Joshua's inherited documents. Old bills, insurance policies, a sparse bank account, and, crucially, the will. A lawyer's crisp letter explained the inheritance tax situation – fortunately, in 1992, the federal estate tax threshold was quite high ($600,000 gross estate), and California had already phased out its inheritance tax for deaths after 1982. This meant less immediate financial drain than he'd feared, but still, managing the estate required effort.
The herbal store was a non-starter. Its niche appeal and outdated presentation made it a liability in his eyes, not an asset. The house, however, was a different story. Located in a decent part of Los Angeles, it had potential. His future knowledge of real estate booms whispered in his mind. Property values would skyrocket. But he needed liquid cash now.
His first strategic move was to put both the house and the herbal store on the market. Navigating the world of 1992 real estate without the internet was a jarring experience. He had to physically visit real estate agents, flip through classifieds, and endure endless phone calls on Joshua's clunky landline. He quickly learned about "Transfer Disclosure Statements" and "Natural Hazard Disclosures"—forms that felt painstakingly analog compared to digital checklists he was used to. He pushed for aggressive pricing, using his future intuition about rising property values to justify figures that made the real estate agent raise an eyebrow.
"Mr. Grant, with all due respect, this price for the house… it's ambitious, especially given the recent downturns," the agent, a woman named Beverly with hair sprayed into an impenetrable helmet, had cautioned.
Ranbeer, channeling Joshua's quiet confidence, just smiled. "I have a feeling about the market, Beverly. Just list it."
The herbal store proved even more challenging. It attracted only a handful of curious inquiries and one ridiculously lowball offer. Ranbeer, recalling future trends towards organic products and health consciousness, briefly considered modernizing it. But the sheer investment of time and effort felt like a detour from his primary goal: Hollywood. He needed quick, clean breaks. He eventually accepted a slightly better, though still modest, offer for the store's inventory and fixtures from a smaller, local holistic practitioner, essentially liquidating it rather than selling it as a going concern.
Within a few weeks, an interested buyer emerged for the house – a young couple eager to start a family. Ranbeer, with his modern understanding of market dynamics, negotiated firmly but fairly, closing the deal quicker than Beverly anticipated. The process of escrow felt archaic, a slow dance of paperwork and legalities.
Once the sales were complete, and the modest, necessary inheritance taxes and legal fees settled, Ranbeer found himself with a surprisingly substantial sum in Joshua's bank account. Not enough to buy a studio, but more than enough to be a serious player in the stock market.
He went to a local brokerage firm, feeling a strange mix of exhilaration and condescension. The brokers, with their loud ties and clunky computer terminals displaying green text on black screens, seemed like relics themselves. He sat down with a young broker named Mark, whose skepticism was evident when Ranbeer began to rattle off company names.
"Okay, so you want to put a significant sum into... Microsoft? And this relatively unknown company, Apple? And... an online bookstore called Amazon? And what was that other one, Google? Never heard of them." Mark squinted at his notepad.
Ranbeer forced a calm smile. "Just trust me, Mark. Diversify, yes, but focus heavily on these. And hold them. For a long, long time."
He watched the numbers blink on Mark's screen, a thrill running through him. This was it. This was the foundation. The quiet, grief-stricken Joshua Grant was gone, replaced by a man with the memories of a future multi-millionaire, ready to leverage time itself to conquer Hollywood. The game had truly begun.
The hum of the phone line in Joshua's now empty house seemed impossibly loud. Ranbeer, sitting on a rented folding chair in the echoing living room, held the receiver to his ear, a subtle smirk playing on his lips. He'd done it. The stock investments were locked in, growing quietly, invisibly, like digital seeds in the fertile ground of 1992. Now, it was time to build the actual ladder to Hollywood.
His first move, even before the last escrow closed, had been to research incorporation in Delaware. The state was a haven for businesses, offering flexibility and privacy that Ranbeer, with his future-honed understanding of corporate structures, knew would be invaluable. Days were spent poring over legal textbooks and making calls to attorneys. The process was slow, methodical, without the ease of online forms. Yet, there was a satisfaction in navigating these analog waters, knowing each step was laying a concrete foundation.
He chose the name "Resurrection Films". It felt fitting, a subtle nod to his own rebirth, but also a bold statement for a company aiming to breathe new life into the industry. The legal paperwork was filed, the initial fees paid, and within weeks, a crisp certificate arrived in the mail, officially declaring Resurrection Films an entity based in Delaware, ready for business.
With the legalities settled and a comfortable, growing nest egg in the stock market, Ranbeer turned his full attention to the creative side. His mind, still sharp with decades of future cinematic history, zeroed in on a genre he knew would always find an audience: horror. But not just any horror. He wanted something with enduring appeal, a franchise that could truly cut through the noise.
He began to write. Not on a sleek, backlit laptop, but on Joshua's old, clunky desktop computer, a machine that whirred and groaned with every command. He'd even had to relearn the clack of a proper mechanical keyboard. His fingers, now Joshua's fingers, flew across the keys, translating fragmented memories of gruesome kills, iconic villains, and suspenseful plotlines into a new, original narrative. He called it "Chainsaw."
The first act flowed surprisingly easily. A group of unsuspecting young adults, a remote, eerie location, a chilling warning unheeded. He remembered the raw, visceral terror of the films that would come to define the genre, and he meticulously crafted scenes designed to build dread. He didn't want cheap jump scares; he wanted psychological horror that gnawed at the viewer's mind.
He knew the tropes, the successful formulas, and the mistakes to avoid. He infused his script with character development that often felt missing in early horror, making the victims feel real, their impending doom more impactful. He focused on the visceral sound design, the isolated setting, and the relentless, almost industrial, nature of the killer. He even began sketching out a terrifying mask, a design he dimly recalled as being iconic, though he couldn't place exactly why.
As he wrote, a new problem emerged: authenticity. How could he, Ranbeer, write a script that felt genuinely "1992 horror" yet also pushed boundaries with future insights? He spent evenings watching VHS tapes of existing horror films, studying the pacing, the dialogue, the practical effects. He absorbed the era's limitations and strengths, weaving them into his future-informed vision. He meticulously crafted the dialogue to reflect the language of early nineties youth, even though it felt alien to his modern tongue.
Days blurred into nights. The house, once heavy with grief, now hummed with the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of the keyboard. He lived on instant coffee and convenience store burritos, his world shrinking to the glow of the monitor. He was no longer just Ranbeer reborn, or Joshua Grant inheriting a life; he was becoming a creator, a nascent force in the industry he was determined to dominate.
The final scene of the first draft came into focus: the chilling reveal, the sudden, brutal appearance of the antagonist, the roaring of the titular weapon. He leaned back in his chair, the screen reflecting his tired but triumphant face. "Chainsaw" was taking shape. It was raw, it was brutal, and he had a feeling, a strong, future-informed feeling, that it was going to be a bloodbath at the box office. His Hollywood dream, once a distant fantasy, was now a tangible, terrifying, and utterly exhilarating reality.