"Mirror." A voice rang through Pidge's head before she was dunked in the water again, barely even getting a moment to breath in between. Her glasses were off now, having lost them in the first dunk. She knew they were in the water at least.

She tried desperately to hold her breath as she was in the water, but she ended up gasping by accident, taking in too much alien water.

Then they brought her head up.

"Statue." The voice said, Pidge spitting out water as she came up, only getting a tiny breath of air before her head was dunked in again.

She could hear some yelling from outside, but couldn't quite tell what the words were. One of the voices sound a bit like Allura though. Like she was screaming at people. Pidge just kind of assumed it was out of anger because...well she would be angry too if some people just started dunking Pidge's head in the alien water without any warning whatsoever.

Then, she came up again.

"Can."

And then she was back in the water again.

Pidge's thoughts started to trail off some more as she was put in the water. She started to think nasty thoughts about herself. She started to believe that she wouldn't be able to do this again. That she was going to fail.

They were going to die because of her.

Up.

"Joke."

Down.

No, she couldn't think those thoughts. They would distract her from what was going on. By worrying and panicking, she wouldn't be able to help them. By giving up, she gave up any hope for saving them.

Besides, she had to focus on what was going on now.

She had a slight idea to what was happening anyways. It was part of the memory test. When she was in a panic type of mode, like suffocation, her mind wouldn't be focused on her memories anymore. It was hard to remember or pay close attention to surroundings. Some people even get amnesia from suffocating.

Pidge would have to remember the words. She just hoped she could do it.

Up.

"Game."

Down.

But she wasn't in the water for a very long time. Not like the other times. She was brought out quickly and she wasn't dunked in again.

Her head hovered over the alien water, her hair completely soaked and dripping back into the jar. She blinked a few times to get any of that weird water out of her eyes. She got most of it out without having to use her hands, but her vision was still blurred. She could only tell that there was a jar in front of her. She was completely blind, but it wasn't the best. She could just barely make out figures if they were right in front of her. The rest was blurred.

"Repeat those words in order." The woman said, her voice stern but not mean. Just...saying instructions.

Pidge bit her tongue a bit as she reached her head to pull out the words. She knew she remembered them, she just had to get them out of her head.

"Mirror..." Pidge said quietly, remembering the first one before biting her tongue again. The second word...what was it? She remembered that it started with an s..no wait was it a c?

She frowned a bit before saying the word, "Can."

There was no reply, just like the last time. She wished she had her glasses, that way she could look for a clue in the woman's face if she got it right. Though, as she thought about it, the woman was most likely trained and wouldn't give off any hints. Still, it would be nice to see.

Pidge just hoped she was told at the end if she got it right or not. She was curious.

"Next." The woman ordered when Pidge was silent for too long.

The girl gulped a little bit and pulled out the first word that popped into her head, "Poke."

It kind of sounded right to her, but it didn't sound...exactly right.

"And last?" The woman asked. Pidge frowned a little. Wasn't there five words? Did she miss one?

"Game." Pidge answered, confident about that one since that was close to the time when she figured out what they were doing.

She felt the people holding her let her arms go and Pidge slumped forward a bit, being able to keep herself up. She almost let herself fall but she was able to remember that there was a jar in front of her. She started to breath slowly, letting her racing heart return to its normal speed. Just trying to calm down. She still couldn't see yet but she dug her arm into the alien water and started to search the ground for her glasses using her hand. Her body was already cold so the alien water didn't make much a difference.

Her hand searched around for a bit before feeling something plastic. Pidge smiled softly to herself before wrapping her fingers around the temples of her glasses before pulling up. Not too quickly though, this alien water felt more dense and she didn't want to break her glasses. Where would she get new ones? Well she could probably make some with the right ingredients, but that would be hard if she was blind.

A soft and relieved sigh escaped her lips when she got her glasses fully out of the way. She placed them on her face and blinked a few times to try and get her vision back. It took a few tries, but it slowly started to clear up and Pigde could see what was happening now.

The women were over with alien 2 (the least human) and were now holding her head in the water. Pidge watched curiously, noting that they were only doing one at a time. Probably so the girls wouldn't get messed up by other words.

When they brought the woman's head up, the woman that had spoken to Pidge said a word to alien 2 but Pidge didn't understand it. It was an alien word, she guessed, from an alien language. Pidge supposed that made sense. It was probably the alien's first language. A lot of aliens seemed to know English, Pidge never thought about whether it was their first language or not.

It was kind of interesting to hear another alien's language actually. She had been hearing English for so long, the only words that were really different were the names. Not all of them were even alieny. Just...bad sounding English. Pidge hadn't even realized how disappointed she had been from that until now.

Then a thought popped into the young girl's head. What if Allura's first language wasn't English? But Allura was the one that first spoke to her and the other's in English. Maybe that was just a more common language in their world. Or maybe it's just her first language.

Pidge watched as alien 2 repeated some of the words to the woman in front of her. It was hard for Pidge to be able to tell if they were right or not since she didn't know the actual words but at least one sounded way off than the others. Pidge hoped it wasn't just the one though..

Then the woman moved over to Allura, who didn't look too happy to have her arms grabbed from behind her. The women holding her obviously didn't care as one of them kicked the back of her knees so she'd go down, even though it looked like she was willing to go down to her knees anyways. Pidge scowled when Allura winced from the kick on her knees.

The woman on Allura's right side forced her head into the alien water. It felt like she stayed in the water longer than Pidge and the other girl were in too...but maybe she had just counted wrong? Pidge honestly hoped so, they didn't need to make anymore enemies on this planet.

When they pulled her head back up, the spoke an English word and Pidge could hear Allura repeat it to herself, probably to help her remember. She was a little disappointed that Allura's first language was English. But it was also a good thing, because Pidge might have actually held back on her speech if Allura's language wasn't English. However, this was a nice opportunity to learn how a language from Earth had gotten all the way over to Altea. Or the other way around.

After they had finished, Allura repeated the words she had remembered. She only got one right though. Pidge frowned a bit, hoping that she had gotten more down but she wasn't too sure. Plus there were two others girl.

They had finished up in about twenty minutes tops, each other their languages something different so Pidge couldn't quite tell if they were right, but one of them sounded like they had gotten almost all of them right...which wasn't good for Pidge.

The loud woman stood in the center of the arena again and started to speak, "They all participated well, but there can only be one winner. And that winner is... NAJ-"

"WAIT!" a voice screamed, causing Pidge to snap out of her panic state and look over at one of the woman who had held the others down over the water, dragging alien 1 by the arm over to the loud woman. Alien 1 looked nervous as the loud woman looked at the woman's forearm and scowled at her. She spoke something to the woman holding her and the other nodded before dragging alien 1 off again.

"Since...there seemed to be a major issue with Najna cheating, she has been disqualified." She announced to the crowd and the large range of boos spread over the people, "Instead, the winner is PIDGE!"