The mango tree in the courtyard was Ram's sanctuary. Its gnarled branches, heavy with fruit, offered shade and a sense of ancient peace. He was a small, quiet boy, often lost in his own world. A world that, unbeknownst to anyone, was about to splinter.
It began on Ram's seventh birthday. His grandfather, a wizened old man steeped in local lore and whispered secrets, gifted him a dusty, leather-bound book. It was locked, and the key, his grandfather said with a wink, was hidden within.
Ram, usually indifferent to puzzles, was captivated. He spent weeks poring over the book, its pages filled with strange symbols and diagrams that resonated with something deep within him. He couldn’t read the language, but he felt an undeniable pull, a dark curiosity that thrummed in his veins.
One sweltering afternoon, huddled beneath the mango tree, Ram finally found the key. Tucked within a hollowed-out illustration of a serpent, it was small, tarnished, and impossibly intricate. A thrill, cold and unfamiliar, shot through him as he unlocked the book.
From that moment, Ram was gone. Babu had arrived.
Babu was everything Ram wasn't: bold, mischievous, and hungry for power. He devoured the book's contents, meticulously copying the symbols into a hidden notebook. He didn’t understand their meaning, not consciously, but he felt their potential. They were keys, he believed, to unlocking the secrets of the universe. He saw himself as a chosen one, destined for greatness.
One day, while playing with his friends, Babu decided to test his newfound knowledge. He drew a symbol from the book in the dirt and, with a focused intensity that startled the others, chanted nonsensical words he’d memorized. A sudden gust of wind whipped through the courtyard, scattering leaves and sending dust devils spiraling into the air. Babu, eyes wide with delight, felt a surge of intoxicating power. He was a wizard, a sorcerer, capable of manipulating the very fabric of reality.
The experiments continued, escalating in their intensity. Babu conjured illusions, made small objects levitate, and even, accidentally, turned the neighbor’s cat a vibrant shade of blue for a few hours. He was careful to hide his activities, sensing that Ram, or what remained of him, disapproved. He relegated Ram to the quiet backwaters of their shared consciousness, a mere observer in Babu's grand designs.
But deep within, Ram felt the ripples of Babu's magic. He experienced fleeting images of swirling storms and crumbling buildings, terrifying glimpses into Babu's distorted view of the world.
The second split happened years later. Ram (increasingly suppressed by Babu) was now a teenager, a brilliant student with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. He devoured books on physics, mathematics, and history. But Babu, still lurking, saw these pursuits as a threat. He feared Ram would dilute his magical abilities with logic and reason.
One night, during a particularly intense thunderstorm, Ram was working on a complex equation related to temporal mechanics. He was fascinated by the idea of time travel, of bending the laws of physics to traverse the dimensions of time.
Suddenly, a jolt of electricity surged through the house, knocking out the power. In the darkness, Ram felt a strange sensation, a tingling in his brain, a feeling of intense clarity. He saw the solution to his equation, a complex algorithm that held the key to manipulating the flow of time.
But this wasn't Ram. This was Bilasi.
Bilasi was a scientific prodigy, a genius driven by logic and an unwavering belief in the power of reason. He saw the world as a series of complex equations, a puzzle waiting to be solved. While Babu sought to control reality through magic, Bilasi sought to understand it through science.
Bilasi, using the flickering light of a kerosene lamp, meticulously wrote down the equation, oblivious to the brewing storm and the lurking presence of Babu. He was consumed by his work, driven by an insatiable desire to unlock the secrets of time.
His creation, barely scribbled on a piece of paper in the dim light, contained the seeds of a technology that would one day threaten the very fabric of space-time.
Babu, sensing a new presence, a new rival for control, lashed out. He flooded Bilasi's mind with images of paradoxes and cosmic horrors, attempting to overwhelm him with the sheer impossibility of time travel.
But Bilasi was resilient, his intellect a shield against Babu's dark influence. He saw the challenges, the dangers, but he also saw the potential. He saw the possibility of correcting the mistakes of the past, of shaping a better future.
The battle between Babu and Bilasi raged within Ram’s mind, a silent war fought on the battleground of intellect and will. Ram, caught in the crossfire, was further fragmented, his own sense of self blurred and distorted.
The storm eventually passed, leaving behind a trail of destruction. Just like the storm within Ram’s mind that had created Babu the wizard and Bilasi, the time-travelling scientist. He would grow up to be a brilliant VFX artist... but the seeds of chaos had been sown long ago, under the shade of the mango tree, in the dusty pages of an ancient book, during a stormy night where equations unlocked a dangerous power. The reign of Ram was fading, and soon Babu and Bilasi would fight it out on the world stage.