The private lounge of Nexus Tower smelled like money: leather, citrus candles, and the faint ozone of too many high-end PCs running in the next room. Red and blue LED strips pulsed along the walls, making everyone look like characters in the game we all wished we'd made.
I, Shawn David, twenty-six, nobody from nowhere, had just won the impossible.
A golden ticket.
Out of two million entrants in the global Aetherion closed-beta contest, I was the one chosen. Not just early access; a full week, all expenses paid, inside Nexus Interactive's Tokyo headquarters as their "Special Guest Creator." They were flying me out tomorrow to play the unreleased build, meet the dev team, stream it live, and; most importantly; have my own NPC modeled after me immortalized in the final game.
It was the kind of break people kill for.
Apparently, some actually do.
"To Shawn!" Liam raised his cocktail, flashing that perfect influencer smile he spent years perfecting. "The luckiest bastard alive!"
Everyone cheered. Mia, Cole, Jess, even quiet Ethan who barely ever spoke unless it was about code. My five closest friends since college, the same people who'd watched me grind speedruns and theory-craft builds for years.
I stood up, cheeks burning, holding the ridiculous oversized novelty check they'd printed just for tonight's party.
"I still can't believe it," I laughed. "I literally just clicked 'submit' on the raffle like everyone else. This doesn't feel real."
"Oh it's real, bro," Cole said, clapping me way too hard on the back. "First-class flight, five-star hotel, hanging with the actual devs of the biggest MMORPG in a decade? You're basically a celebrity now."
Mia leaned over, topping off my glass from the bottle of Yamazaki 18 she'd insisted on ordering. "Drink up, superstar. Tonight we celebrate you."
The whiskey burned smooth, then wrong.
I coughed once. Twice.
The room swayed.
"Shawn?" Jess asked, voice suddenly distant. "You okay?"
My knees buckled. I caught the edge of the table, knocking over glasses. The golden ticket slipped from my fingers and fluttered to the floor like a dead butterfly.
Ethan finally looked up from his phone. His eyes were flat. Empty.
I tried to speak, but my tongue felt like lead.
Liam crouched beside me, still smiling that same perfect smile.
"You weren't supposed to win, Shawn," he said quietly, almost gently. "We all entered. Hundreds of times. Alternate accounts. Bots. Everything. But the system picked you. Random chance. Isn't that funny?"
Mia knelt too, brushing hair from my sweating forehead like a loving sister.
"We could've shared it," she whispered. "You could've invited us as your plus-ones. Let us stand in the spotlight with you. But no. You bragged about going alone. About how this was your moment."
Cole picked up the golden ticket, turned it over in his hands, then tore it neatly in half.
"Guess you won't be needing this anymore."
My vision tunneled. The last thing I saw was Ethan pocketing the two halves of the ticket, calm as you please.
Jess's voice floated down, soft and regretful:
"Enjoy the game, Shawn. Permanently."
This is it. This is the night everything changes.
I never saw Jess reach into her hoodie pocket.
I never saw the small matte-black pistol until the muzzle flashed.
The sound was smaller than I expected. A sharp cough. Then fire exploded in my chest, right over my heart. My legs forgot how to work. I dropped straight down, knees cracking against the marble floor I looked up. Jess was still pointing the gun at me, both hands trembling, tears cutting clean lines through her foundation.
"I'm sorry, Shawn," she whispered. "We voted. It had to be you."
The others didn't move. Didn't help. Just watched me bleed out like I was a speedrun strat they were testing.
My vision tunneled. The pain was distant now, muffled under cold. Blood pooled warm under my back, soaking into the expensive carpet.
I thought, stupidly: I'm dying in socks with little Chocobo prints on them.
Then everything went black.
I regretted everything at once.
I regretted trusting them.
I regretted bragging about the trip instead of inviting them.
I regretted every late-night Discord call where I vented about how I finally "made it" while they stayed stuck in dead-end jobs.
I regretted the porn tabs I never closed, the lies I told my mom about being safe, the way I laughed when Cole joked about selling my account for rent money.
I regretted being alive at all if this was how it ended.
Darkness swallowed me whole, thick and final.
And then… light.
Not harsh, not blinding. Soft. Golden-green, like sunlight filtered through new leaves. The smell hit me first: wet earth after rain, honeysuckle, something like warm bread. I opened my eyes and I was lying on grass so vivid it hurt to look at. Flowers I didn't know the names of bloomed in impossible colors: blues that sang, reds that breathed. A breeze carried distant bells and the laughter of children I couldn't see.
My chest, though.
I looked down and almost threw up.
There was a hole the size of a fist right through my sternum. I could see grass through it. No blood now, just a perfect, clean tunnel punched through flesh and bone. It didn't hurt. It should have hurt.
Am I dead? Is this heaven? Hell?
I laughed once, a cracked sound. Heaven wouldn't let in someone whose browser history could make the devil blush.
I pushed myself up on shaking arms. My Chocobo socks were gone. Bare feet in soft grass. My hoodie and jeans had been replaced by a simple white tunic, already stained with dried blood around the hole.
That was when I saw him.
He stood maybe thirty feet away beneath a tree whose leaves shimmered like stained glass. Tall: easily seven feet. Skin the warm brown of river stone. Hair like spilled starlight, moving even without wind. And wings: massive, golden, each feather edged with living fire that didn't burn. He was looking away from me, gazing at something beyond the garden I couldn't see, something that made his face gentle and terrible all at once.
An angel. A real one.
I opened my mouth to call out. My voice cracked like a twelve-year-old's.
He turned before I made a sound.
"Shawn David," he said, and the name rolled through the air like thunder wrapped in velvet.
My full name. Nobody used my full name. Not even my mom when she was mad.
He knew me.
I tried to stand. My legs betrayed me. I crawled instead, grass cool against my palms, until I was close enough to see the sorrow in his eyes: ancient, infinite sorrow.
"Come," he said simply, and extended one hand.
I took it. His skin was warm, calloused like a warrior's, not soft like I expected. He pulled me to my feet without effort. Up close he smelled like lightning and cinnamon.
We stood in silence for what felt like years.
Finally I found my voice. "Am I… dead?"
"Yes," he said. "And no."
I laughed again, hysterical this time. "That's not an answer."
"It is the only one that fits." His wings folded tight against his back, feathers brushing the flowers without crushing them. "Your soul was torn loose too early. A betrayal. A bullet meant for envy, not justice. The scales are… unbalanced."
I looked down at the hole in my chest again. "So this is purgatory? You gonna weigh my heart against a feather or whatever?"
He smiled, and it broke something inside me because it wasn't cruel, wasn't mocking. It was sad.
"I am Gabriel," he said. "And I have questions for you, Shawn David. Answer honestly. There is no judgment here: only truth."
I swallowed. "Okay."
"Do you know what you were?"
"A loser with good RNG in a raffle?"
He didn't laugh. "A spark. A soul that burned bright enough to be noticed, even when you tried to hide it under jokes and self-hatred. You created things: speedrun routes no one else saw, memes that made strangers smile on their worst days, kindnesses you never told anyone about. You were becoming dangerous to the dark. That is why they feared you enough to kill you."
I stared at him. My throat hurt.
"Tell me, Shawn," he continued, voice soft as falling ash, "if I gave you power: real power, not follower counts or rare loot, what would you do with it?"
The question punched harder than Jess's bullet.
I opened my mouth to say something edgy. Revenge. I'd burn them. I'd make them feel every second of what they did to me.
But the words died.
Because standing there with a hole in my chest and an archangel waiting, I suddenly saw all of it: the late nights helping Liam edit videos even when he never thanked me, the times I spotted Mia rent money, the way I taught Ethan how to clear the raid that got him his first sponsorship, how Jess used to cry on my shoulder when her dad called her worthless and I stayed up until dawn making her laugh.
I hated them. God, I hated them.
But I had loved them first.
"I don't know," I whispered. "I want them to hurt. I want them to choke on what they did. But… I also want to be someone they could never have become. Someone who doesn't kill his friends over a stupid ticket."
Gabriel's eyes softened further.
"Second question," he said. "What is a hero?"
"Someone who saves people," I said automatically. Then frowned. "Or someone who tries, even when it's messy and they're scared and they screw up half the time."
"Third question." His wings flared, filling half the sky with molten gold. "There is a world dying right now. Not your Earth. Another one. It has waited a thousand years for a hero who was prophesied: someone betrayed, someone murdered by those he trusted most, someone carrying a wound that will never heal. That world is bleeding, Shawn. Its gods are silent. Its children are born already knowing how to scream. Will you go?"
I looked down at the hole in my chest again. It still didn't hurt. But I could feel the absence, like a scream frozen in time.
"What happens if I say no?"
Gabriel's face didn't change, but the garden dimmed, colors bleeding toward gray.
"Then you pass on. Rest. Whatever comes after. The world keeps dying. Eventually it forgets how to hope at all."
I closed my eyes.
I thought of Jess's tears when she pulled the trigger.
I thought of the way Liam's smile never reached his eyes anymore.
I thought of the golden ticket torn in half.
I thought of a world full of people who maybe didn't deserve to die screaming just because five jealous idiots on Earth decided one life was worth less than fame.
"I'll go," I said. My voice didn't shake. "But I'm keeping the hole."
Gabriel actually smiled then: small, proud, heartbreaking.
"Good," he said. "Because that wound is the doorway."
He reached out and pressed two fingers directly into the hole in my chest.
It should have killed me again.
Instead the garden exploded into light: white, searing, alive. I felt every feather on his wings, every blade of grass, every distant child's laugh, all of it pouring into the empty space where my heart used to be.
Gabriel's voice rang inside my bones.
"Remember this, Shawn David: heroes are not born perfect. They are forged in the moment they choose to stand up with a hole in their chest and say, 'Not yet. There are still people who need saving.'"
The light swallowed everything.