University of Southern California. 1991.
The Los Angeles sun was a benevolent tyrant, beating down on the immaculate green lawns of USC's campus. It was the kind of perfect, cinematic light that student filmmakers chased with light meters and desperate prayers. Today, it was the spotlight for an execution.
A small crowd had formed a loose, predatory circle on the quad. Their whispers were a low, rustling soundtrack to the scene playing out in the center. Leo Vance stood motionless, feeling the sun's heat on the back of his neck like a pending judgment.
Across from him stood Pera, her face a perfect, placid mask.
"Leo, this isn't working," she said. Her voice was calm, rehearsed, as if she'd practiced the line in a mirror. "We should break up."
The words didn't land like a lover's betrayal. They landed like a studio executive's final verdict. A memory, sharp and unwelcome, sliced through Leo's mind—not a memory from his 23 years, but from a life he wasn't supposed to have. He was suddenly 52-year-old Arthur Vance again, smelling the stale whiskey on a producer's breath in a stuffy Burbank office. "Art," the man had said, his face a mask of false sympathy, "the project just isn't working."
Leo blinked, the phantom memory fading, leaving an icy residue. He looked past Pera's shoulder. Standing just outside the circle of onlookers was Chad, his arm draped possessively over the fender of a gleaming black BMW. The son of a Fox executive. Chad wasn't looking at Leo; he was looking at Pera with the smug satisfaction of a man admiring a recent purchase. He gave her a slight, almost imperceptible nod.
"It's not you, Leo," Pera continued, her eyes flicking toward Chad for a fraction of a second. "Your films… they're brilliant. All the professors say so." She said the word 'brilliant' as if it were a terminal disease. "But art doesn't pay for a mortgage in the Hills. Potential doesn't get you a callback."
The crowd of students watched, their faces a mixture of pity and morbid curiosity. They were like spectators at a public hanging, mesmerized by the drama (Simile). Leo could feel their stares, a hundred tiny pinpricks on his skin. He should have felt humiliated. Heartbroken. Instead, the cynical, 52-year-old man inside him felt a wave of profound, weary clarity.
Of course, the old man's voice echoed in his head. It's always about the next rung on the ladder. She just found a faster one.
Pera took a small step back, a final, severing motion. "I'm sorry," she said, though the words carried no weight. She turned and walked toward the BMW, her stride confident, her back straight. The crowd parted for her like water for a shark.
Leo watched her go, watched Chad open the passenger door for her. In that moment, he didn't see the girl who'd critiqued his scripts and shared cheap pizza with him. He saw the future: a long, slow montage of her face in progressively smaller roles on progressively worse TV shows, her "potential" slowly fading under the harsh Hollywood lights until it was gone completely. He had seen this movie a thousand times.
He was supposed to say something. Shout. Plead. Instead, a single, involuntary word escaped his lips, spoken in the quiet, steady voice of the man he used to be.
"Okay."
Three days later, the world outside his dorm room window had ceased to exist.
Leo was cocooned in the semi-darkness, the only light coming from the blocky CRT monitor of his desktop computer. The air was thick with the smell of stale coffee and old paper. The only sound was the low, rhythmic hum of the machine's cooling fan. He had spent 72 hours sifting through the wreckage of two lives, piecing together a single, coherent timeline.
Arthur Vance, the failed indie director, was dead. His life had been a grainy, out-of-focus film, a series of jump-cuts to failure that ended on the floor of a filthy apartment.
Leo Vance, the 23-year-old USC wunderkind, was alive. This new life was a stunning, terrifying 4K restoration of his past, and he was in the director's chair.
"Leo? You alive in there?"
The voice cut through the silence. Marcus Riley, his roommate, filled the doorway. A gentle giant of a man with the build of a linebacker and the soul of a poet, Marc was the best cinematographer at USC, and the only person Leo considered a true friend. His face was etched with concern.
"You haven't moved since… well, since Pera." Marc shifted his weight, uncomfortable. "Man, don't let her get to you. She's chasing a ghost."
Leo swiveled in his chair, his eyes adjusting to the light from the hallway. A faint, unfamiliar smile touched his lips. It was the smile of the 52-year-old man, full of gallows humor and grim purpose. "I'm fine, Marc. Better than fine. I was just figuring things out."
"Figuring what out?"
"The future," Leo said simply. He stood up, his movements now charged with an energy that had been absent for thirty years. "Marc. Our graduation project. I want you to do it with me."
Marc's worried expression melted into a broad grin. "You even have to ask? We're a team. What's the pitch? Another silent film about a lonely lamppost?"
"No," Leo said, his voice dropping, taking on a conspiratorial intensity. "No more art for art's sake. We're going to make a movie. A real one."
He knew he couldn't climb the ladder the traditional way—assistant director, editor, waiting for a break. That took a decade, a decade he didn't have. His greatest asset was the 30-year archive of unmade history in his head, a resource with a terrifying expiration date. He had to build his empire now. Hollywood wasn't a dream factory; it was an abattoir, and this time, he planned on being the one holding the bolt gun (Metaphor).
The first step was a low-budget film that no one could ignore. Blood and sex were the cheapest, most effective tools in the box. But he wouldn't make a cheap slasher flick. He would craft a nightmare.
"Horror," Leo stated.
Marc raised an eyebrow. "Horror? Leo, that's not really your—"
"It is now."
Leo grabbed a pen and a legal pad, the plastic cool and solid in his hand. He began to write, his hand moving with frantic precision. The memories of his past life weren't just trivia; they were blueprints. He had spent countless nights deconstructing films, analyzing them frame by frame. And one, in particular, stood out—a masterpiece of low-budget, high-concept tension. A film that wouldn't exist for another decade.
He wasn't just recalling a movie. He was writing a business plan. A weapon. A project proposal so tight, so viscerally effective, that no investor could walk away.
At the top of the page, in sharp, decisive letters, he wrote the title.
[CHAINSAW]