She swiftly made the sign of the cross, closed her eyes and started whispering Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name.
When she opened them, tragedy laid in front of her: a sheet of paper filled with a tiny, compact writing.
She hastily started counting one, two, three subjects.
The exam paper sinisterly grinned.
So she began.
The ordeal! The pen was burning her hand, the eraser was slipping through her fingers, the tip of the pencil was breaking each and every single time she was trying to use it, and the letters were dancing on the paper, never standing still.
An unwanted weakness was softening her knees and millions of ants were swarming under her skin, numbing her, making her dizzy.
A vicious circle was initiated.
She wrote, she erased, she wrote again, she erased again, therefore, after a quarter of an hour, her exam sheet was as white and desolating as it had been at the very beginning.
Ideas revolved and clashed in her head making it impossible for her to shape any valid solution, under any circumstance.
Then she entered phase two.
She was checking the time every five minutes, she was writing in a hurry and everything was seemingly clearer than ever.
Thousands of butterflies were flying in her stomach and nausea wrapped around her, like a bitter breeze.
She was feeling hunted, chased...
Oh, a cramp! Typically, hand cramps commence right when you're in the middle of an exam, precisely when you finally have so much to write.
But you cannot escape what you fear most, so...
After an entire hour with the sword of Damocles swinging above her head, a merciless arm came from her left and took the paper from under her nose.
She ruefully glanced after the professor, bearing away with her sentence and nevertheless a confusing state of relief rifted from underneath her regret.
After all, it was finally over and now she could return to her everyday life, as usual.