His eyes watered with the effort he was making to peer through the darkness. He reached for the switch on the reading lamp that was fixed to the headboard of his bed, but he realized that he was alone in the room.
His heart hammered against his chest as he stretched out a hand, feeling nothing but the chill night air.
"Buffy…" again he spoke her name, trying to figure out whether he had fallen into a dream without first falling into sleep, but for some strange reasons he was sure that he had really seen her.
Although more than twenty years had passed since he had seen Buffy for the last time, he could remember everything from that time, down to the smallest details.
He closed his eyes and the years began to move in reverse, like the hands of a clock moving in the wrong direction.

"Do you want to play hide-and-seek?" he asked after he had given her the flowers he had picked for her.
She nodded and buried her face in her hands while she began to count. "One, two, three, four, seven, twelve…"
"Hey, you're cheating!" he protested.
"No, I'm not", she began to giggle as he folded his arms.
"Girls are stupid!"
"Boys are much more stupid!"
"I don' want to play with you anymore", he said, knowing that he was lying.
"Okay, then I'll go home and I won't come back", she said and, pretending that she was leaving, turned away from him.
"No, you must stay!" he shouted, following her with quick steps.
They looked at each other, chuckling.

"I want to play something else", she suggested.
"What?"
"Hmm… let's play that we are married. You're my husband and you want to take me out for dinner. You must tell me that my dress is beautiful and that…"
"But you're not wearing a dress", he reminded her. "And I don't want to play that we're married. EEEEEW!"
She rolled her eyes. "Why not?"
He grimaced. "Because you're a girl! And girls are stupid!"

He knew that many children had invisible friends, but he remained convinced that on a deep mysterious level, against all evidence to the contrary, his friend Buffy had been more than just a product of his imagination. His stubborn persistence through the years had been motivated by something more desperate than hope, by a faith that sometimes seemed foolish to him but that he never abandoned. He needed to believe that she existed, that she was not just a lonesome child's fantasy.
For him she was just as real as the air that he was breathing, as true as the warmth of the sun.

He opened the window and looked out into the dark blue night sky. Listening to the sounds of the nearby river, he leaned his head against the glass pane. Usually a calming presence, the gushing of the river tonight was overloud, filling his head with white noise.

He thought of the moment when he had realized that she was standing in his room.
She had been a little girl when he had seen her for the last time… but now she seemed to be a young woman, with the same big green eyes and the blonde hair that framed her face.

Where had she been all the years?

"Help me…"
He remembered the words that she had spoken, almost as silent as a whisper. Something cold and slick curls in his already twisting gut, something indefinable, like a suddenly arising feeling of fear.

"God, what is happening to me?" the words slipped from his lips as he watched the very first rays of sun displaced the darkness.
"Buffy… how can I help you?" he spoke into the silence, not knowing that it would take seventeen more days until he would see her again.

At first he thought he was hearing a sound left over from his dream. He had been dreaming about Buffy and although he couldn't reconstruct every single detail, he knew that in his dream their lips had met briefly, soft and wet, leaving a thread of spittle connecting them when they drew apart.
She had whispered his name, over and over again.

When he began to wake up, he struggled against consciousness, tried to hold on to sleep and prevent the fantasy from fading, but then he realized that someone was really calling his name.

"William… help me."

He squinted into the impenetrable shadows, saw nothing, cocked his head, and listened intently.

"Please help me."

He stood up and winced as he suddenly saw her appearing, her presence betrayed only by the silent rustling of her dress.
Her lips parted to a silent "William", and she smiled sadly.

He wanted to ask her so many questions, he had waited so long to see her again, but when he most desperately needed to talk to her, he was speechless.
"Buffy…" he finally managed to say, realizing that her eyes were looking dull.

"Help me…" her pale face, bathed in the softening glow of the moonlight, had an expression he couldn't stand and he stretched out a hand to touch her.

"Please…" she whispered.

"Where are you, Buffy? Where can I find you?"

His eyes widened in shock as he realized that she was about to disappear again.
"I'll do anything… I swear I'll do my best to help you… I'll find you, Buffy!" he shouted.
He knew that he could keep the first two promises. The third, however, was something less meaningful than wishful thinking.

She faded and his outstreched hands felt nothing but cold air.
"Buffy…Summers…" the last word slipped from her pale lips almost as thin as a piece of silk.

And then she was gone.

He could smell the scent of her hair and he stood perfectly still, fearing that any movement he made would cause the memory to fade as well, leaving him with only the sour smell of his night sweat.

Buffy Summers.

He had spend more than five hours to find out where she might live and now he stared at the monitor. The dropping sensation in the stomach, the tightening in the chest, the lightheadedness familiar from the sudden speedy plunge of a roller coaster afflicted him now, as he sat dead still on the chair.
Buffy Summers, Sunnydale, California.

A phone number.

With shaking fingers he began to dial the number.

And then he heard a sleepy voice saying "hello?"

He dropped the receiver and tried to stand up, but unable to break away from whatever force was keeping him there, he stared at the telephone.

The voice belonged to a man.