Black Healer

"Hey! Guys! I found someone suspicious hiding in the bushes! Come and see!"

Frightened out of her mind, Evelyn barely recognized the voice of the man now holding her in the air. It was the man from before, the one the woman had called David.

As Evelyn desperately tried to wriggle out of his grasp, the man lost his hold at her shirt, and she fell to the ground. She anxiously tried to crawl away from him, but he grabbed her arm, dragging her up to her feet.

"Stay still!" he growled, and Evelyn felt all her strength leave her body. She desperately wanted to get away, but the man was too strong.

He was at least a head taller than her, and his body was massive with muscles. She contemplated getting her dagger from her inventory, or using steal life, but quickly threw the ideas away.

She would never be able to take out and use the dagger without him noticing, and she had no idea how much damage steal life would do. She knew it was enough to dry out flowers in seconds, but a human, and especially a climber, was bound to have a lot more life force.

Since he had called for the rest of his party, she decided to wait silently for them to arrive, as that would give her the best likelihood to survive. And even if she wanted to continue resisting, she was unable to muster forth any power to her body. It had frozen in place, rendering her immobile.

'It'll probably bring more harm than good to resist any more'.

'Please let the rest of his party be nice. Please let me get out of this with my life,' she franticly wished, as she remained held in place by the large man.

"Ha! If you were going to give up so easily, you should have been still from the beginning!" David snorted, clearly annoyed.

It didn't take long for his companions to return. A man and a woman, that Evelyn mused were probably siblings, came from one side, but they only gave Evelyn weird looks as they arrived and didn't say anything.

A few seconds later another woman arrived from the opposite side of the first arrivals. She was a bit on the shorter side, but she gave Evelyn hope. She looked kind.

Evelyn tried to plead to the woman with her eyes, but the woman remained silent, looking at David instead.

"Who is she?" she asked, clearly directing her question to David, that still had Evelyn held in a tight grip.

"I don't know. Found her hiding in the bush, mumbling to herself," he said, while pointing his head in the direction of the bush she had hidden behind.

Evelyn felt her face heat up at his words. 'How did this happen? I didn't even notice that I was talking out loud', she embarrassedly thought. 'This is not the first impression I wanted to give!'

Listening to David's answer, the woman looked Evelyn up and down, her brows furrowed.

"So, who are you? Why were you hiding in the bushes like some creep?"

'A creep?! No! That's what I was trying to avoid!' Evelyn screamed internally.

She wanted to answer the woman, but her mouth had once again dried up. She opened her mouth to say her name, but no sound came out.

Evelyn felt her face heat up even more, as the whole group was now staring at her. She felt like a deer in headlight, or a zoo animal, as they kept watching her.

'I need to talk! I need to at least say my name,' she franticly thought, trying to muster out the words.

"… Evelyn," she finally responded, her voice barely a whisper.

"What?" David asked, towering above her.

Evelyn felt her knees weaken, and it was a wonder how they kept her standing up when they felt like jelly.

"My name-", Evelyn started, once again trying to introduce herself. But before she could, she was cut off by a furious, roaring shout.

"David! If you want to keep your hand attached to your body, you release her right now!"

And like magic, David's hand no longer held her in place, releasing her so fast that Evelyn had to look down at her arm, just to make sure his hand was really gone.

She looked over to the man that had shouted and felt an intense feeling of relief when she recognized him.

His large, tall frame was jogging towards them, while his sandy hair fluttered softly in the wind.

"Matthew," she softly uttered, glad to encounter someone she knew.

She started walking towards him, but stopped to look over her shoulder, making sure David wouldn't grab her again.

David had his hands in the air, clearly signaling that he would not stop her. He almost seemed a bit in shock, but Evelyn quickly discarded the thought.

Seeing as she would not be held back, she jogged towards Matthew, meeting him halfway.

"Are you hurt?" Matthew asked, as his hands went up towards her shoulders before he quickly retracted them.

"I am alright," she smiled, comforted to see that he acted the same as she remembered him.

'He still doesn't know what to do with his hands' she mused to herself, seeing his hands hanging awkwardly in midair. 'He is taller than I remember, but his gentle demeanor is still the same.'

She first met him a few years ago when she was seventeen. It was at one of the rare occasions when her family had brought her along to a charity banquet. Her parents had gone off mingling and her sister had left to chat with her friends, leaving Evelyn standing alone.

She had been unsure of how to interact with other people her age, as she hadn't been introduced to anyone, when Matthew came up to her. He had introduced himself to her, and introduced her to others, helping her out of her predicament.

Evelyn was far more comfortable talking with people as long as she had been introduced, as it was part of what she had been taught by her tutor. When she had asked her tutor about introductions in one of their classes, her tutor had corrected her and sternly told her that there was no reason for a girl like her to do such a thing. When would she ever be in a situation where she wasn't introduced by others? She was, after all, a young lady. It wasn't proper for her to go around and introducing herself left and right.

Evelyn hadn't questioned it at the time, as she had convinced herself that this too, was proof of how much her parents cherished her. They only wanted the best for her, and of course they knew the best who she should be interacting with. 'It kept her value up', they had told her.

It wasn't before she had to live on her own and get a job, she realized that this was knowledge she should have had. That most people knew how to introduce themselves in different situations. But even then, she simply searched it up online and ignored the warning bells. It did not fit into her constructed reality, after all.