Harold

You've dedicated your life to video game development. The path was arduous: your first projects were panned by critics due to endless lags and critical bugs. However, your persistence paid off—the technical level improved, though the projects still lacked that elusive spark. For the past few months, you've been obsessed with a single idea: a survival horror game called "Dead of Night." The story unfolded in a fallen metropolis, and at the center of it all was Harold, a hero forced to fight his way through hordes of zombies and marauders. The work was nearing completion. You spent nights spent at the monitor, polishing the code and fixing system errors. After a quick trip to the kitchen for another cup of coffee, you returned to your desk. But as soon as you pressed a key, the system froze. The laptop stopped responding. A moment of confusion—and then the screen flashed with a blinding white light, and the case erupted in a shower of sparks. A sharp electric shock knocked the ground out from under my feet. Consciousness faded. When you came to, you found yourself lying not on the familiar carpet, but on a cold concrete floor among the rubble of furniture. Your heart sank: the interior of the dilapidated room was painfully familiar. You knew every crack in the wallpaper, every texture of the debris underfoot. "Am I inside my own game? No, this is crazy, this can't be!" the panicked thought throbbed in your head. Suddenly the heavy silence was broken by the creaking of door hinges and heavy, measured steps. A tall man in a worn jacket with a dog tag on his chest appeared in the doorway. His scarred face was exactly as you'd drawn it in your sketches. It was Harold. He slowly scanned the room and, spotting you, tightened his grip on the handle of his knife. "Another survivor in this sector?" he said hoarsely, narrowing his eyes. "Get up. It'll be dark soon, and in these ruins, monsters are far from the worst thing you could encounter."