Knock Knock
Sarah's head whipped towards the sound while she frantically picked up the pieces of her nightstand, and the now broken potion bottle.
"Just a second!" She hollered, the broken glass scraping the insides of her calloused palm as she carelessly scooped up the mess.
"Sarah? It's Diana, we need to talk." While the graveness in her voice was apparent it didn't make Sarah waver in her hasty actions. She still rushed around the room, trying to erase any sign that she had had another attack.
"I-I'm coming!" She stuttered while taking one last look around to see if she might have missed anything. It had seemed she hadn't, so, combing her fingers through her hair, she opened the door to a fairly tall woman with mud, brown hair and worried blue eyes. A brown belt and sheath, containing a small, sharp knife, hung from her grey dress.
"They're here, Sarah. I just wanted to make sure that you were ready?"
Sarah nodded, her expression stony and unemotive. Exactly how she kept it around others. Diana nodded in response as if reassuring herself that everything was okay and set. She seemed even more worried than Sarah did about this, which, even though she wasn't showing it, Sarah didn't think was possible.
"Julian and Emma have taken the children out to train at the beach, they won't be back for some time, so you'll be able to take your tests in the training room."
The written exams were easy, Sarah passed with flying colours. They were just a matter of memorizing runes and various pieces of Shadowhunter history, something everyone was forced to do from a young age. It was the physical portion that really took a toll on her. Not the running. Not the throwing knives. None of that. It was the pressure. The pressure they forced you to mimic battle. That's what threw her over the edge.
"It's simple," the Inquisitor had said, his cold, apathetic gaze resting heavily upon Sarah. "The lights will be dimmed to recreate the effects of a nocturnal mission. Mannequins of varying sizes and shapes will pop out of the walls and floors, a few will even be on tracks moving vertically across the room. Some will be made to look like mundanes, some shadowhunters and some demons. It's your job to distinguish the three and eliminate the demons without harming the innocent or any Nephilim. Got that?"
Sarah nodded nervously as the Inquisitor raised one grey, bristly eyebrow. Creasing the weathered, rough skin above it. Diana stood directly beside him, her eyes darting from him to Sarah.
"It's testing your reaction times, Sarah, just keep yourself focused and calm." She reassured, once again ringing her hands in her dress.
"I've got it," she responded, walking towards the back wall and crouching as if beginning a short-distance sprint. As the Inquisitor had said, the lights began to dim and wooden mannequins were put in place. Diana was just far enough across the training hall that Sarah could see the tip of her bun poking out over the pieces of equipment. She was saying something to Inquisitor in a low voice, although she was far out of earshot so Sarah wouldn't have been able to hear her anyway.
Soon, the Inquisitor, Diana and all of the other various guards had moved out of the training room, closing the doors loudly behind them. Most likely they had used a rune on one of the training room walls so that they could see her test from outside the hall, eliminating the risk of one of them getting caught in the crossfire of one of her knives. Sarah's hands trembled as they gripped the floor beneath her. There was something about being specifically watched, whether for a test or just a training exercise, that had never sat well for Sarah.
Deep breath, deep breath, she soothed. Once again trying to keep her face as placid as possible. Suddenly a blindingly white spotlight popped over a mannequin deep within the room, Sarah sprinted towards it without hesitation. Her right hand was clasped firmly around the hilt of one of her throwing knives, her eyes squinting at the bright light as she tried to make out which mannequin she was coming towards: It seemed to have a humanoid figure, with pure, tan skin and familiarly short, dark hair. Mundane, Sarah thought, going by the lack of runes on the skin. Swiftly, she pushed one foot out in front of herself, stopping mere inches away from the mannequin. Turning her back to it and standing in a distinctly protective stance, she faced the rest of the dark surroundings. A throwing knife now out of its sheath rested in the crook of her palm.
With a click, the light above her went out and onto a mannequin directly to her right. It was on a track and was moving towards her and the "mundane" alarmingly fast. She could see straight away by its shape that this was neither human nor Nephilim. Her knife whipped passed the side of her head and flew into the mannequins middle with a loud clank. The demon's track halted almost instantly after being hit, although the white light didn't go out. It stayed for a good six seconds after stopping and was starting to give Sarah a headache. But soon enough it popped over yet another humanoid figure across the room. As Sarah got closer, however, and the white light seemed to get brighter, she soon realised this was nothing she was meant to be protecting. Its form had misled her at first, but not anymore.
Suddenly, without even realising it, she was not only running, but she was sprinting forward. As fast as her body would let her. Tears stung the back of her eyes as she saw the two black, chiselled horns sitting at the top of its head. She was no longer seeing the rest of the training room nor any of the other mannequins. Instead, her vision was filled with fire and her ears were ringing with the sound of a single, piercing cry. A pain like no other filled every inch of her body, forcing her to double over onto the floor as every other piece of reality that was left morphed into a blinding field of white.