The salty taste of sweat was a taste that never failed to linger on the tongue of those who had the misfortune of tasting it. The salty residue beading down your skin only to stay even longer on your person in the comfort of your own mouth. To her, it was the worst taste in the world. No matter how familiar she was with it.
Sweat accumulated in heaps upon her body, the warm substance dripping slowly down her skin. The pale canvas that was her body now painted with the colours of blood, sweat and her own tears. She had been training for hours. Her arms shook as each hit she blocked echoed through the desolated area. The lack of windows and harsh fluorescent lighting doing little to quell the surge of heat that had accumulated in the training room. She was close to giving out, to letting her body succumb to the pain it was feeling but the fear of the repercussions that would follow her collapsing onto the the training room's rubber floor would be too harsh to allow her to stop.
Again. Again. Again.
The rough sound of the doctor's voice circling the room at the end of every round. She wished he would end this torture. To allow her a moment of peace but she knew that if this session was anything like any of the others, she would be fighting for at least a few more hours. As her mind was beginning to wander a sharp jab towards her jaw snapped her back into reality. The rush of pain that started within the area burning under her skin as she fell to the floor. Her sparring partner's punch was always the most severe thing about him. A hard, unforgiving punch that would leave dark bruises on her pale skin for weeks.
