Growing up, there was a knock on the door every year at midnight on your birthday. With everyone sound asleep, you would always go and check who's there, only to be met with nothing. On your 20th birthday, the knock happens as usual, but this time someone is standing in front of you. It is the handsome man from your nightmare last night—a person who wielded powerful magic and saved you from a dark being during your dream. You hope that your dream was not a premonition.
It was said that the handsome man was a hero who saved everyone, and that he would be arriving every year on your 20th birthday. Since then, he's been visiting each year, never staying more than an hour, shaking hands with every person who greeted him and then saying that he had to go. You suspected that he wanted you to see him so that you would believe that he was the savior everyone says he is. You learned the name of this man—Henry, the magic-user—slowly over the years. That is, up until you thought that you could finally get to know him.
"Hello … can I help you?" said the girl, still in her pajamas, who suddenly found herself standing before the same boy she met in her dream right before she woke up. She could only assume that Henry, the man she had seen in her dream, was the same boy standing in front of her, but she couldn't be sure. His appearance was better-defined this time around.
"Hey … I want to ask you something," Henry said in a hushed tone of voice, "You … are you still having the same nightmares? The stuff about magic and the hero who can manipulate it?"
"Y-yes. You … you know about it? Why are you asking?"
× × ×
"So … I'm the one who saves you in your nightmares right?" the hero said, "You and everyone else has been seeing the same dream this whole time?"
"That is what I thought, but I don't know for sure. Dreams probably only belong to those who experience them so I don't think anyone else but me could say for sure about what the dream is about," answered the heroine.
"That's a good answer, but you may be wrong about something. I do save you and everyone else around here, but I'm not the one who appears in your nightmares. I am just the one in the dream, who has the power to bring you out of it," the hero explained.
"What are you talking about? I've been dreaming since I was a child. Since I was born an I've never known anything other than dreams. I have no idea who you are," the heroine replied, "But why have you been coming to my dream every year? Why do you want to interest me in believing in you?"
"Because you'll be able to tell everyone else that you saw me and that I'm real," the hero explained, "I want everyone to know who I am and the people around here are depending on the news that their savior is visiting every year. If I knew you were the one seeing my dreams, I'd be visiting every single year. The crazy part about being rejected by everyone here is that I don't know who I am either. I just woke up in this village after falling from the sky last year," the hero said.
"What is your true name? Everyone's here anyway so why don't you tell everyone who you are?" the heroine asked.
"My name is Henry," the hero said, "But my family is a secret. I don't know many people in this village," the hero explained, "And some of my family's secrets have gotten out, so I need to ask you a favor," Henry said.