Gateway is an experimental markup language that tries to be simple and unambiguous.

`1=Header
`2=Subheader
Text attributes: `(*bold`)*, `(/italic`)/, `(_underline`)_, `(-strikethrough`)-, `(%code`)%
Backtick literal: ``

Every control sequence is clearly delineated by a preceding backtick (`), and everything else is plaintext. So rather than the backslash being the "escape" character that deactivates the markup syntax, the backtick is the "gateway" character which unlocks it. Also, I care more about clarity and ease-of-parsing than readability, so I guess the syntax is a little ugly.