The steel door slid shut silently behind me, ending another mediocre workday at the office.

I was a software engineer for a medium-sized startup, and some days were better than others. If measured, today would be smack dab in the middle of the chart. There were annoying problems, but some decent solutions. Overall, I couldn’t complain.

As I got into my car, my cell rang, and I answered it with the in-vehicle audio.

“Hey babe,” I said as Bri’s face appeared on the navigation console. We had been dating for about two years now, and things had plateaued. Not in a negative way or anything; things had just solidified into a comfortable routine, and neither of us was making an effort for anything more.

“Hey, are you almost home?” she asked. Her voice was soft and sometimes hard to hear, but I had grown used to it.

“Sorry, just left.” I backed out of my parking spot and pulled onto the main road, which was already light on the traffic; one of the perks of working late, I told myself to console my emotions towards the extra hours. “Had a late meeting.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll meet you there then.” Though the response was understanding, I could hear the frustrated undertone, and I didn’t blame her. I had promised dinner tonight, and at this rate, we wouldn’t be eating until way too late. It wasn’t the first time, either.

I sighed as I entered the highway and headed home. It was a good thirty-minute commute and gave me time to think or potentially listen to audiobooks when I had the chance.

Today, I didn’t want to try and solve any problems, so instead, I put on a gaming podcast that had been doing a series about a favorite classic game of mine, Heroes Gate, or, in particular, an upcoming expansion that I had been super excited about, much to my girlfriends' annoyance.

Artifacts of Destiny.

The name felt a bit on the nose, but the game was originally released over two decades ago and hadn’t had any new content since I was a kid. There was literally nothing that could dim my excitement.

Heroes Gate was more than just a game for me. Sure, it was over twenty years old, with outdated graphics and some annoying gameplay elements. I have played many “better” games throughout my life. But Heroes was something that I played and shared with my best friends, both childhood and adult, my dad, and even my brother. I've come back to it at different times in my life, both the good and the bad. It had always been there as a sort of both relaxation from stress and challenge from boredom.

I think that’s what makes it so great. The memories and bonds made alongside it, but also the ability for it to fit into any crevice of life that it needed to.

I turned up the volume. The ads and sponsors should be over by now.

“…talking about the new Hero class!”

Ah yes. Perfect timing. I knew this had been revealed earlier today, and I had worked hard to avoid spoilers.

“Until now, we’ve had reveals of the two new factions, the Scourge and the Elementals. But now we have confirmation straight from the devs mouths on an entirely new hero type, and without further ado, the new class is…”

The world shook and my eyes widened as the sun suddenly seemed to dim, leaving me in shadow. I slammed on my brakes, no longer able to see the semi in front of me. In fact, I couldn’t see any of the other cars.

I slowly came to a stop and got out of my car, looking around. The world was deathly silent, and the darkness had some sort of red or purplish tint to it. Though I was on the highway, I still expected to hear something, but there was nothing but ear-ringing silence.

I returned to the driver's seat and got my phone, which greeted me with nothing but a blank, dead screen.

"Did I eat something bad for lunch? Did I get into a car wreck and die but don't realize it?"

"Maybe I am dead…"

Footsteps. Heels of some sort were clicking on the hard highway surface.

I spun and saw a woman approaching me. She was beautiful, with deep orange eyes and long, flowing golden hair. But that wasn't even the thing that stole my attention. No, it wasn't her body…

It was her wings.

Massive, feathered wings of white spread out behind her as she gracefully and lightly walked towards me. I noticed her feet were bare.

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But the footsteps I heard were definitely not those of bare feet on asphalt.

That's when I noticed the other woman.

She approached from the same direction but at a different angle from the winged woman, but she couldn’t be a more polar opposite.

She also had wings, but they were deep crimson and leathery. Her skin was the same crimson color, and she had curved horns atop her head. She held a long whip over one shoulder and wore black leather clothes, including massive black heels.

Her black eyes locked on me, and she licked her black lips, smiling.

Before I could decide whether to run, talk to them, or get in my car and plow them over, they had finished the approach and made my choice for me.

"Don't listen to a word she says," the Angel (as I was now calling her) said abruptly. "It will be nothing but lies."

"Lies, lies… I never lie," the woman who I had just now dubbed a demon said, the smile never leaving her crimson face. "I merely tell them what they want to hear."

The Angel scoffed and reached out to me before stopping abruptly and pulling her hand back. "Please listen…"

"Listen to what? How you're desperate and need him to save your pathetic kingdom?"

"Yes, from you!"

"Why would he do that when he could join in the fun!?"

"He's not like that, I can tell!"

"Hah, then your senses are getting worse. He definitely wants…"

"Enough!" I shouted, not realizing I had raised my voice, but not feeling bad about it either. The two women stopped and looked at me. The Angel's eyes were wide while the Demon held onto her smirk as if I had just proved her point. "Look, I'm sorry. But who are you? What is going on, and where did everybody go?" I motioned my arms around me as if it was obvious. An empty highway during rush hour… "Please talk one at a time," I pleaded.

Now, I have played enough video games, read enough novels, and seen way too many movies. So I knew that either one of two things had just happened. Either I had just plowed into the back of the semi that had been in front of me and was dead, now either experiencing some hallucination or whatever.

Or, this was real, and these two beautiful creatures were here arguing about me for some reason. The most surreal part of the entire experience, however, was that I had no anxiety or need to panic. It was as if the worry and pressure of life had just disappeared. That… tipped the scales towards the "I was dead" option.

The angel spoke first. "I'm sorry, I did not realize that she would also be here. I was told that we had more time… Anyway, that's beside the point. I am the Angel Revella and am here on behalf of Tamrael, the Original Archangel and the Last Bastion against… her kind."

The demon scoffed but waited patiently for her turn.

"We need someone like you, with your knowledge of our world, to help us. Otherwise, Elarinth will fall to the demons." Revella said the last part as if there were no disputing it. The demon did not argue.

I decided to let the demon speak before saying anything else. My mind was already spinning. Elarinth was real? That was impossible. It was the world that Hero Gate took place in, and to be quite fair, I knew more about it than I would care to admit. I did not recognize the names they had given me, nor this particular plot point, however. I nodded and turned to the demon, indicating that it was her turn.

She simply laughed. “I’ve got nothing to say, except that if you want power, if you want to win, come with me. Otherwise, you will lose. And you will die.”

That’s when I noticed archways appearing around me. There were three of them, one directly behind Revella, one behind the Demon, and a third between them.

The archways looked like gates of some sort, or portals. The one behind Revella was lined in silver and gold, with warm light emanating from it, while the one behind the Demon, as expected, released dark, bubbling clouds of smoke. It did feel powerful, however, while the other one felt… I wasn’t sure how to put it. Hopeful?

Then came the third archway. There was no one here at that gate to try and convince me to join them. I liked that already. When peering into the gate, I could see clouds of lightning and rolling hills. I didn’t feel anything from it, however.

"We can also offer you great power!" Revella said. "We have Leagues of Archangels and Titans!"

The Demon laughed, "A lot of good those dusty pigeons have done for you so far."

I wasn't listening. Instead, I was noticing the small, golden aura beginning to seep out of the middle gate. And that feeling of nothing when looking at it a moment ago was starting to change.

It was almost as if something was pulling me in.

"What are you staring at?" The Demon asked, the smile gone from her lips for the first time. She followed my gaze, then turned back to me, her eyebrows raised in confusion.

"You don't see that?" I asked, taking a slight step forward.

"See what?" The Angel asked as she also tried to understand.

They can't see it…

I continued forward, my decision being made for me.

"Where are you going?" The angel's voice touched on panic. The demon stepped forward as if to stop me, but then stepped back. My intuition led me to believe that they couldn't touch me, especially with how the angel reacted earlier.

"Look," I said, continuing forward between the two, my confidence building. "I appreciate the offers, but I'm a bit bored of playing your factions." I had spent decades playing random factions in Hero Gate, and even though this situation was absolutely confusing and a bit crazy, if there was one thing I was confident in, it was my knowledge of Elarinth. If I was going to be teleported into such a familiar world, and ended up stuck there, I definitely did NOT want to spend my life stuck in a faction that I already knew everything about. Sure, the strategic advantages would be good, but I could already apply all of my knowledge to those factions, regardless of whether I was there or not. And who knows, maybe this wasn't the same. Maybe I wouldn't be "playing" a faction at all. Maybe this would be different.

And Artifacts of Destiny did have a new faction that hadn't been revealed yet…

I ignored the pleas and attempted bribes from the Angel and Demon, saying a silent apology to Bri in case I didn't see her again. I stepped up to the gate and felt the wind blow in my face. The lightning spread across the dark sky sending shivers down my spine.

"Holy shit, am I really doing this?"

I stepped into the Gate, realizing with a sudden spike of joy that I wouldn't have to go to work tomorrow.