I don't own Starcraft

It was college. Ho-hum. I walked home with my backpack on my back and my head in the clouds, not noticing my surroundings. I do that too much. Honestly, Fort Bragg Road is pretty nice between school and the house. There's the old church to pass by, some cute houses, two haircutting places, and that new building some guys have been working on for the past month or so. It looks like a residential place, but I'm not sure yet. In Fayetteville we get a lot of businesses that work out of regular-looking houses.

But I'm not paying attention, like I said. I was off in la-la land, enjoying myself. The song "Dark Heart Dawning" by BT was stuck in my head, which isn't too bad of a thing, because it's such a happy, content song. I had just discovered it, as well as Ashley Carr's remix of Illuminor, and well, electronic is one of the funnest things in the world. To me, anyway. I was in an especially good mood because I didn't work that night, and I had the next day off of both work and school because of mid-term break.

"And in the age of love," I sang quietly, "I found my sacred place...where I can hide-"

Whoops! Someone was about to mow the church lawn. I looked straight ahead, avoiding the eyes of the redneck-ish guy starting up his John Deere. Politely, I glanced in his direction and nodded. There! I'd officially fulfilled my obligation to be friendly to strangers who are looking at me funny. Moving on!

Thankfully he started up the mower at that point, and I could go on singing my songs. I don't know all the lyrics to Dark Heart Dawning, so I skipped over to a song that I wrote in my head: Cafiza. It's a love song about expresso machine cleaner. Hey, don't judge. If you were a former barista, you'd like cafiza too.

"Up til now I'd say I'm fine," I sang, distancing myself from the lawn mower. Oh good, no one was coming out of the haircutter's place. "But not so today. Parts of me I thought were mine, slowly fall away...uh?"

I stopped singing because of the...stuff. It was like a cloud around me, with thin wisps of some sort of finger-like mist beginning to encircle me. As it thickened and grew, it turned various shades of electric blue and separated me from the street. I swatted at the mist, but it did nothing more than swirl a little faster. I was trapped in an absurd world of blue - but only for a second or two. Soon enough the mists cleared away. However, the sigh of relief caught in my throat. This was no longer my home city.

Instead of the open air of a public street, there were walls of a gold-colored metal, with various computer-ish modules and pipes hanging on from the floor to the twenty foot (or so) high ceiling. Instead of cracked cement under my feet there was some sort of polished floor. And instead of blue sky, the window above a cushioned platform (if it was a seat, it was somewhat too high to sit on comfortably) showed the eerie blackness of space.

Scattered about all these places were various random items. Under the platform was a leaking 2 liter of Dr. Pop. Leaning against one of the computers was one of those small Japanese tables, complete with a plaid kotatsu-blanket around the rim. A coverless book, closed, lay about two feet in front of me. For no reason I could think of, I tapped it with my foot.

"What is this?" I mused aloud, because talking to myself is fun. "Is this like one of those 'I spy' games where we have to find everything that doesn't match?"

"Annyonghasehyo?"

The small timid voice came from my left. It was a small, Asian girl, very skinny and pale, halfway hiding behind some kind of elaborate support pillar. She wore old clothes that instantly reminded me of the eighties, only with duller colors. Her haggard face and the uncertain way her fingers tightened around the corner of the support pillar produced instant sadness. Her reaction towards me was less sympathetic, and a faint scowl was in her eyes. My heart sank, but I had to ask the question. There wasn't really much point. I already knew the answer.

"Choson saramiehyo?"

She nodded. "Miguk saramiehyo?"

"Ne." I answered. Yes, I'm an American. And yeah, their "yes" sounds like "no".

The North Korean girl evidently didn't like the sound of that, but at least I was something she could comprehend. Nothing else about this place made sense. We could only look around and guess. The Korean, like a stealthy, suspicious cat stepped out from behind the pillar, curious but uncertain if she could turn her back on me. After a moment, she turned to me and began to speak, pointing at the various things around us. At this point I couldn't keep up. She was going way too fast, and I only know enough korean to make myself look smart in front of non-Koreans.

"Aniyo, chon-chonhi malrul chusehyo. Hanguk...er...chosonmal..." I tried, starting to reach the limits of my vocabulary. It's so weird. My korean book taught me me to ask for three types of alcohol in the first chapter, but I still didn't know how to say that I only know a little of the Korean language. "Chosonmal mot...chal mot malsseyo..."

I don't know if she understood me. She was too busy screaming at the top of her lungs. I instantly snapped around to figure out what she was screaming at. I froze. I literally could not move. All action drained out of my nerves, and I stood there, completely uncomprehending. I could do nothing more than blink helplessly.

Standing not four feet in front of me was a giant Protoss. The markings on his face made it easier to recognise who he was, but there's a lot of difference between a pixelated image and the real thing. Besides, you try suddenly finding yourself in front of an elaborately robed, pissed off reptillian giant with only 1/3 of a face and not be at least a little awed. And I was awed. I still couldn't move - it felt like my arms were pinned down, and any thought of taking rational action vanished from my mind. I wasn't scared or anything, just suprised out of my wits. You'd react that way too if you suddenly found yourself face to face with Judicator Aldaris.

So this is my life now. I thought, because that was all the power I had to do at that moment.

For some reason Aldaris paused, himself confused. Makes sense that he'd be confused at a couple of random humans showing up on his spaceship. If it is his spaceship. Maybe it belongs to the Conclave. In any case, the Korean girl was probably super scared, so I figured I better let her know it's alright. First things, first, though.

"Anyonghashimneekka," I said to Aldaris, in korean. It's a more polite language, especially when you do the bowing thing. I called out to the Korean. "Hey, Agasshee, kwenchannayo. Protoss saramiehyo."

Aw crap, I probably should have said bun instead of saram, because Aldaris is an important guy in his society and korean has honorifics. Oh well, I'm not fluent. Mistakes happen.

"Puh-ro-tossu?"

"Ne. kwenchanna...I think..."

The Asian girl had ducked behind her pillar again and didn't show any sign of coming back out. I didn't blame her. I had told her that everything was alright, but Judicator Aldaris was giving me the stink eye. And quite frankly, when someone has big, glowing red eyes, he can do the stink eye pretty well.

"What are you doing on my vessel?" Aldaris said, his voice dripping with scorn and distrust. "How did you get here?"

"I don't know..." I said with a shrug. "I just appeared."

"Nevermind. Cease with your prattering and come this way." Aldaris jerked my arm out of the room (and nearly out of its socket) before turning his glare to the Asian. "You also. Quickly!"

The girl hesitated, but I gestured her over before Aldaris could get angrier. He shoved us both through the halls, revealing more passageways, floors, and computer consoles covered in random, non-Protoss whatnots. There were half a box of tropical Yankee Candles in one doorway. We had to dodge a mess of colored pencils scattered around the floor. A blanket was draped over something on the wall, and a pissed Aldaris flung it down to access some controls.

Two massive doors opened to reveal a huge room filled with an entire wall of monitors and whatever consoles the engineers could fit in between. At least, that's what I'm assuming, 'cause dang if I know what Protoss technology is. Everything was strangely circular, and the panels themselves were arranged in such a way as to allow a lot of space to walk around. To the left, a couple of consoles were split up by a large window, but all we saw outside was black space and stars.

The glowy, blinky lights sort of stunned us humans, but we had enough presence of mind to step aside and let Mr. Cranky Pants get by. He passed us like a speeding truck, rushing on the console and operating the keyboard furiously. Well, I think it was a keyboard, but for 'Toss. The buttons were level with the rest of the console, so it was kind of hard to tell.

"You!" he ordered with the point of his arm. "Sit there and touch nothing!"

We glanced over to the left, where there were a few chairs. Two of them were beside different stations, but we figured that he meant a sort of red couch along the back wall and out of reach of the consoles. Aldaris wasn't paying us much attention at the point, but we obeyed anyway. It was like trying to sit on a high stool, but we could climb up on it without looking too silly.

"Kwenchannayo?" the girl asked sarcastically as she slumped against the seat.

"Shikurowayo." I muttered. It wasn't my fault Aldaris was so cranky.

It really wasn't. Judging from the images and frantically blinking Protoss words scrolling across those dang monitors, it was clear something was going on with his ship. It made me antzy to just sit there, so I looked around instead. This room, like all the others, was also burdened with assorted Earth debris. There were some coloring books on the floor, as well as a chipped sculpture of some kind of forest animal. Spying a package of strawberries, I climbed down and got it. Their little plastic bin was still stickered shut, and since they were still cold to the touch, they'd probably been in a fridge not too long ago. I ripped off the label.

"Hey, Colleen," I brought the strawberries to the Asian girl. There's no chance in the world that Colleen is her real name, but she looked like a Colleen to me. "Mukgoseyo. Strawberries. Choayo."

I snagged one of the strawberries from off the top before handing the rest to Colleen. I wasn't really hungry, but Colleen was a North Korean, so strawberries would be good for her because they're not processed food (Let the nutritionists contradict me if necessary). I just took one to show that it was food. Colleen, a little reluctantly, paused before she touched the bin of strawberries in her lap. She seemed to like them, but I didn't realize until she bit into one that there could have been pesticides or something on it. I really need to work on this whole "thinking ahead" thing.

For the moment, it was time to assess everything. Here we were, an American and a Korean in some strange place filled with scattered items and a cranky Protoss. I wondered if we were in Protoss territory. I got the haunted feeling that we were trapped inside Starcraft itself! Though for the moment, I kept those thoughts to myself and went over to a window-looking thing (it might have been another monitor at first glance) and peered outwards. I could see the graceful fins of a Protoss starship blocking part of the view. The rest of the view was just stars. Wherever we were, there didn't seem to be any other Protoss ships around. Or else they weren't visible from the window.

We're in space. We literally could be anywhere now.

Some of the blinking lights on the various monitors stopped. A red warning message still appeared on the main monitor Aldaris was using, but he seemed a little calmer than before. Aldaris stared at his monitors. He kicked away a set of tupperware out from under the console and started to type again. A blank side screen lit up, revealing a picture of a friendly, familiar planet.

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Good, we're still at Earth. Awesome."

As if he'd forgotten us in the past two seconds, Aldaris spun around, astounded, though his eyes paled a shade or two. "You mean to say I have come this far?"

"Well, yeah. I should have guessed. All this stuff on your ship is Earth stuff."

Aldaris literally paled. I didn't think reptile skin could do that. Once again, he returned to ignoring us and started typing on his computer again. An assortment of Protoss lettering crossed several of the monitors, and Aldaris pounded his fist against the console. Whatever he'd just discovered, he didn't like it.

"So what exactly is going on?" I dared to ask. "How did we get here?"

Aldaris glared at me a moment, but he must have guessed there was no harm in answering my question. He sighed...or the Protoss equivalent. I don't know if they have normal lungs or what.

"There is...a problem with my vessel. I do not know precisely what it is." he punched a few more buttons on his console. "There seems to have been a disturbance with its recall ability. Now..." here he turned back to me, leaning down a little to get that perfect glare to full affect. "What exactly were you doing?"

"What, before I got here? I was walking down the street." I shrugged. "Colleen here, erm, actually I don't know her real name. Uh, hey, irumi mwoyehyo?"

"Na?" Colleen looked up from her strawberries. She was half finished already. "Lee Cheonha."

"Bethany Beverly-ehyo." I responded, then turned back to Aldaris. "Yeah, she's Cheonha, and I'm Bethany."

"That is not what I meant." If Aldaris narrowed his eyes any further he was going to be walking around with his eyes shut. "Are you aware of any sort of human technology that is capable of interfering with my systems?"

I shrugged. "I don't have the kind of job where I would know a thing like that. As it so turns out, all I know is that my government's cut spending on space exploration."

"What? You are lying!" Aldaris rose to his full height, shoving a finger in my face. "You mean to tell me that the United Earth Directorate has cancelled its own fleets and restrained them to this sector? Impossible! I know that at this very time they are in the Koprullu Sector, completing whatever scheme they can to dominate those few pathetic human worlds."

I blinked. He was so serious. He simply had no clue what he was in for, and I got the sense he knew I was feeling bad for him. This didn't make him any less angry.

"Look at that screen." I pointed to the picture of the Earth. "That's live monitoring, right? So if anything goes by, you'll see it? If the UED is out there, then why aren't there any UED ships? It's because there are none. All you're liable to see is some TV satellites and whatnot. Hey, wait a minute. How close are we to the planet right now?"

"Protoss measurements do not readily convert to human numbers," Aldaris replied with suspicion. "Why?"

"Uh, well, my dad's a former NASA test subject, and he says that we've got a pretty good range on being able to detect stuff in space. There's a good chance they may know you're here. You might want to hide behind the moon or something. It should block the signals from Earth, I think." Did I? I paused for a bit to consider. "Or do we have satellites that can see it? I really don't know."

"And you're telling me this because...?"

"Simple." I grinned. "This is interesting, and I want to find out what happens!"

Aldaris raised an eyebrow at that, but for the moment, he just placed his hands over two flat panels. They lit up as he moved his fingers, reacting like a theremin to his motions. The view on the screens changed with the movement of the ship, and we cruised over toward the moon. It was pretty cool to see it up close. Lol, I have officially been as close to the Moon as an Apollo pilot. Neato.

"Huh? There's people? Music to my ears!" a new voice said, with footsteps accompanying it. "What's going on?

It was someone I didn't know. Considering all the random stuff that was on the ship, I guess I shouldn't have been expecting someone familiar. It was a black guy, with soft features but pretty well built - which was actually a little surprising, as he was wearing a Doctor Who shirt and giant scarf, typical of the fourth Doctor. One doesn't expect geeks to work out.

Snap! I tried my hardest not to laugh. What a golden opportunity!

It was. Don't judge, okay? I was never going to get this chance again for the rest of my life.

"Why, it's one of our fans!" I exclaimed in the closest thing I could to a British accent and rushed over to shake his hand. "Why, it's always great to meet someone who watches the show!"

"Wha-? Who are you?"

The stunned guy let me shake his hand. He was probably too busy staring at everything to resist.

"I know I don't look anything like my counterpart on the show, but I'm Romana!" I gleefully giggled. "And of course, you probably won't recognise the Doctor. He's not quite what he looks to be on the television show. It isn't always exactly accurate, you know."

I gestured over at Aldaris, and quite frankly, the look I got on both guys' faces was worth it. Aldaris glared again and just turned back to the computer, but the new guy was just aghast. His mouth dropped open, and for a moment, he could do little more than make little gasping sounds.

"Ah...ah...so...you mean the show is...real?" he gasped, in a very nice accent. Black guys with British accents are hot. "It's true?"

"The earlier shows were a bit more accurate." I laughed. "These new ones? Not so much. And the Doctor doesn't regenerate. He just lives a long time."

"Do not listen to any of the nonsense she is telling you." Aldaris muttered. "The girl is lying."

"Aw, man, you didn't have to be such a spoilsport." I chuckled. At least the British guy was still hilariously confused. Oh well. It's not like Aldaris knows what Doctor Who is anyway.

With the impact of a jackhammer, Aldaris slammed his fist against the console. All three humans in the room jumped. The Protoss turned around slowly for the full impact of his evil eyes. Heck, it's like the dude practiced in front of a mirror to look as scary as possible. For the first time, my inner optimism started to waver.

"What did you say?" Aldaris snarled. "How is it that you know my name? Few humans have seen my face, let alone have heard what I am called. For what reason would you know?"

However one goes about forgetting that Protoss are psychic, I somehow managed it. Holy crap that was a stupid thing to do. But he was still waiting for an answer, so I let a few nervous, creaking words into the air.

"You...saaaaaid it?"

"I most certainly did not." he stepped a little forward, and I stepped back. My strides aren't as long as his, so it didn't do any good. "I made the specific point of not telling you."

"Uh...uh..."

I was still kinda stunned from his display. I flatter myself that I'm a brave person, but sometimes that's just not true. It didn't help that the Brit had backed up a couple steps so that anything bad that happened would only happen to me. In his defense, Aldaris looked like he was going to spontaneously develop laser eyes any second.

"SPEAK!"

"Well...you see..." I summoned up all my fortitude, clasping my hands together for emphasis. "The thing is-"

Before I could continue, the computer behind Aldaris suddenly started to beep. Aldaris whipped around (why in the world wasn't there a chair at that station?) and started hammering on the controls. His fingers flew, and he said something I didn't understand, but probably wasn't the nicest in polite company.

"Is it a power surge?" I asked, rushing as close as I dared to the console to get a better look.

"Power surge?" the Brit raised an eyebrow. "Wait, is that what-"

SNAP!

Well, actually, it only felt like a snap. It didn't really sound like anything. As far as looks went, it was a brilliant flash of many layers of light, like a hand of lightning closing its fingers around me. And then instantly disappeared. Once again, I had transported. This time, the situation was a little different. I wasn't in Fayetteville or on Aldaris' ship. I was in water, where I could not see the surface. I froze. Right there, a mere five feet in front of me, were the distinctive profiles of two large sharks.

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Author's Notes:

- Hi, guys! This is going to be a journal-type fiction, which will be part real and part fanfiction. I'll update it for as long as I wish to keep a journal, though I do have a specific ending in mind whenever it comes to that point. I plan on updating fairly often, only be sure to cut this story some slack. It's a little more stream of consciousness rather than planned, so it may not always be perfect. But of course, whose journal is?

- I'm not making it up. My korean book really did teach how to ask for three different alcohols in the first chapter. There's maekju chuseyo to ask for beer, yongju chuseyo to ask for foreign liquor, and soju chuseyo to ask for Korean liquor.

Author's Notes New:

- Hello! I don't know that many of you readers have been in this section, let alone for as long as I have (haha, help me, I need a life...), but some of you may remember that this is not in fact a new story. Or you saw the original positing date on it. Either way, you may notice that this story was actually started years ago. I technically completed this segment of it, but I had always planned it in my head to be four parts. This story is important to me on a personal level, and I'd always wanted to complete it. Thus, I'm going to try.

As I mentioned on my profile, I have eliminated all of this story besides the first chapter, and I have deleted the second part. I was very unhappy with how the second part turned out, because some rough life events happened to me during that time, and it disrupted the story and made it a lot lamer than I wanted it to be. As a result, I will be updating the second part. And if I'm doing that, why not start with the first? Every Sunday I'm going to (try to) post an edited chapter of this story, and hopefully improved. I've already done a once over of the chapters of Me and Aldaris, but I will also be doing a second go-through of the story before I post each chapter. I will simultaneously restructure the second part, so that it can be better and more enjoyable than it was.

Frankly, at this stage in my life I need to be working on things I can publish, but this story means a lot to me. Also, in this day and age it means a lot to be able to generate some online presence. I don't know how well it will work out, but we'll see. I'm also trying to finally get properly fluent in korean, and maybe even find a way to get a date or two. One of the things I heard growing up was that the people who always seem busy are the people who genuinely find time to do everything. Lazy people are the ones who can't make the time to do what they need. And I am super tired of being a lazy person. I simply won't have it anymore.

Also, since this was written years ago and was always meant to be a journal, I'm going to be leaving little comments on each chapter about things that happen in it. It's fun to reminisce. In this vein, I will be letting the story continue to be set in the past. It's representative of a point in time in my life, and given the time that has passed, I'll be better able to finish faster. I'll add more reasons for this later (ie I want the bulk of this story to happen before covid times), but for now, I just want it set at the time I meant to have it written.

- Up there I mentioned the "nice, old church", but unfortunately in the intervening years they ruined it. They made it all modern, painting it this horrible, disgusting cool tone grey. You know, that kind of grey that almost sort of looks pale blue. It's hideous on a church. Churches are supposed to be warm and welcoming places, with nice wooden or red colors. Forest green is also good. Grey, on the other hand, should never be a part of a church unless it's actual stones. If not, completely hideous. ...Yes, I am particular about my churches.