"Oh God. No. No. No..."
Her voice cracked as she sank to her knees, clutching the phone tightly. She covered her face with both hands, the cool faux leather material of the gloves pressing against her skin-along with the flat screen of the phone, cold and unfeeling. Her breath hitched.
Please let this be a dream.
Please let this be a dream.
She brushed her hands from her face to her hair, fingers tangling in the grit-slicked strands. "Oh please..." she whispered. Her eyes squeezed shut-tight, desperate. She opened them slowly.
She's still here.
Still the same lifeless, broken plain. The same gray sky. The same silence.
"Please, plea-"
Her voice cracked as she snapped, slamming both hands downward, striking at the air like she could shatter the world around her. "COME ON!!!"
Her scream echoed, swallowed quickly by the dead stillness.
"What is this..." she breathed, then louder, voice breaking, "WHAT IS THIS?!"
Tears welled up in her eyes, spilling down her pale face as the cracked black earth blurred before her. She clenched her teeth, her chest rising and falling too quickly.
Her hand pressed over her forehead, fingers digging through her hair as if she could claw the panic out. Her other hand jabbed at her phone, frantically dialing, tapping, swiping-any contact, any number.
Nothing.
No signal.
No voice.
Just silence.
She screamed and hurled the phone to the ground, the plastic and glass cracked.
"AARRRGGH!!"
She clutched her head, tugging at her hair as she spun in place, her boots grinding against the dust.
"Why me?! Why ME?! Oh my GOD!!"
With a raw, desperate cry, she dropped to her knees and punched the ground hard, pain shooting up her arm.
Her voice softened, crumbling. "I can't do this... I can't do this..."
She hunched over, shoulders shaking. "Why me? What did I do???"
She looked up, tears streaming down her cheeks. But the sky offered no answer.
"DAMN IT!"
And then, just sobbing. Alone, surrounded by a dead world, her voice the only living thing for miles.
"I'm gonna throw up..." she muttered weakly. Her hands flew to her face again, trembling fingers pressing into her cheeks as she felt the sting of bile rise in her throat.
Her breathing hitched, shallow and fast, as panic clamped down on her stomach. But she forced herself to breathe-slowly, shakily. In... out... in...
The nausea lingered, but the wave didn't crash. Not yet.
She slowly peeled her hands from her face. Her eyes, red and puffy, fluttered open as she whispered, "Here we go... here we go... It's gonna be over. It's just a drea-"
Her voice stopped short. The moment her eyes adjusted, the weight slammed back into her chest.
Still the same grey sky.
Still the same cracked, dead ground.
Still the same silence.
"DAMN IT!" she screamed, voice raw with rage.
She shook her head furiously, jaw clenched, her entire body tensing. "I can't. I can't. I'm not doing this..."
Her hands returned to her face once more. Murmuring a desperate prayer.
"I'm gonna open my eyes... and I'll be home." Her voice trembled. "I'll be home... I'll be with mom, with dad, with sis..."
She repeated it like a mantra, hands pressed to her face, body rocking.
"Here we go... here we go...!" she snapped, voice rising into a desperate pitch.
She tore her hands away and opened her eyes-
Nothing had changed.
"ARRRRGHHHH!!!"
She screamed into the void, slamming her fists into the air, into nothing, striking at the silence as if it could be broken. She pounded the air until her arms ached, until her breath came in gasps, until the tears started again, hot and helpless.
And the foreign world still didn't move.
++++++++
I curled up on the ground, my body trembling, arms hugging my knees, shielding me against the cruel reality. The dirt felt coarse against my cheek. My throat was raw from screaming. My tears had dried into sticky trails on my skin, and yet... I still felt like crying.
I couldn't breathe right. Everything hurt. And worse-I was starting to feel thirsty.
God... I'm wasting my own water, aren't I, Stilgar? I groaned. "Well... my throat is sore now..." I muttered to no one.
I rolled onto my back and stared at the pale, sickly sky. Somewhere in the haze of my thoughts, I remembered those isekai stories. The ones I hated, where some lucky bastards gets sucked into another world but always-always-with a cheat code. A magic phone. A God-given system.
Something.
Anything.
I blinked slowly and pulled my phone from my pocket, fortunately it did not crack from me slamming it to the ground a while ago. The cool weight suddenly felt comforting in my mind. Just... maybe. Maybe... it was like that.
My thumb moved without thinking, scrolling through my apps. Scroll. Scroll. Swipe. Open. Close. Scroll again.
But nothing.
No cheat.
No miracle.
No bottled water appearing with a swipe.
I sighed, slamming the phone onto my stomach. "Well, that was a waste of my fucking time."
I laid there, squinting up at the sky, and thought: At times like this... I really wish I got isekaied with cheats.
Now I get it. I really get it. That's why authors give their MCs systems and skills.
So they wouldn't break down and die in the first five minutes.
The horrors of thirst, hunger, sun exposure, mental collapse-it's immeasurable.
It's not romantic.
It's not fun.
It's cruel.
If I had some kind of cheat... a system that could conjure water, give me food, a super map to tell me where I was going-at least I wouldn't be terrified that I might die of thirst in a godforsaken wasteland in the middle of bumfuck nowhere!
I exhaled shakily and turned off my phone, sliding it back into the inner pocket of my suit. I clutched the flap closed and stared up again.
"...Should've gotten me a Stillsuit, you know..." I muttered to the sky. "Disgusting as it might be to drink my own recycled sweat and piss, at least I'd survive a couple of weeks. Damn you, Dune. Damn you, Herbert. You had it right."
I sat up slowly, brushing dirt off my coat. "Okay. First things first. I need to find... something. Anything. Resources. Shelter. Or... maybe even signs of civilization anywhrre nearby-"
I looked around. Dead trees. Empty road. Sand and dust and silence.
"Ugh. I might need a compass to guide me." I pulled my phone out again. "And my phone doesn't even have one-"
I stopped mid-thought.
Wait.
The helmet!
My head snapped toward it, lying where I'd thrown it down. I scrambled over and picked it up, flipping it in my hands.
The HUD was blank.
Inactive.
"...Wait. Did I break it?!" My voice cracked, heart skipping a beat. "Oh God, please no... not this too!"
I stood frozen, clutching the helmet like a fragile relic. My pulse thumped loud in my ears.
Maybe... maybe it was sensor-based. Touch sensitive. Motion-triggered.
"L-let's see..."
I took a slow breath, lifted the clear visored helmet over my head-and slipped it on.
For a moment, nothing.
All I see is still the scenery.
Then-faint light.
A flicker.
The HUD came to life, slowly booting up like it had been asleep for centuries.
Although I had just took off the helmet a while ago...
"...Oh, thank God it worked." I breathed.
The inside of the helmet blinked with a soft flicker. Lines of faint bluish lights danced across the visor-symbols, diagnostics, systems initializing.
My breath hitched.
Wait... does any Dune helmet even have a built-in Heads-Up Display?
I tried to remember-memories of the Sardaukar from the films, armored and lorewise, inhuman in their acts. I couldn't recall ever seeing a HUD on any of them. No digital overlay. No targeting reticles. Nothing.
"...Does that mean my helmet and its integrated systems... uses a... Thinking Machine?"
That thought slammed into me with a shudder. My gut twisted.
That would mean... this isn't a Dune universe. Or if it is, it's wrong. Or old. Or some alternate nightmare version. And if there's a Thinking Machine involved...
I shook my head hard, trying to fling that train of thought into a ditch.
"No. No. Not now," I muttered aloud, the words bouncing inside the helmet. "I can ponder about those things later-Dune's lore, movies, novels, wikis, fandom articles-all of it. I'll have a field day obsessing over the canon if I survive."
The HUD flickered again, brighter this time. My reflection ghosted in the glass-wild-eyed, dried tears cracking across my cheeks, hair clinging to my forehead.
"But right now..." I muttered, as I squinted at the slowly assembling interface.
"...I need to find shelter. And water."
My throat ached with every breath, and my stomach growled like it was warning me: Time's running out.
The HUD finished flickering... then a soft, synthetic voice echoed gently inside the helmet:
"Welcome back, Maria."
I froze.
"...How did-"
But before I could finish the thought, the HUD suddenly bloomed with activity. A translucent overlay lit up my vision, painting subtle lines across the landscape. Small indicators. Topography. Environmental data scrolling at the corners. And there-at the very top-a working compass.
North. South. East. West. All labeled in a crisp, sterile font, and whenever I turned my head, the directions would change as it follows my gaze.
My jaw slackened slightly. What the hell is this thing...?
So many questions piled up like traffic in my head. How did it know my name? Is this really Dune? If there's a Thinking Machine here, what does that mean? Am I even in a known canon?
But-not now.
Not yet.
I squinted at the compass and took a shaky breath. "Okay," I muttered. "If this is a Thinking Machine... maybe it'll respond."
Thinking Machines are basically AIs, but far more advanced than the ones back home...
I decided to test the water. "I need to find shelter," I said aloud, cautiously, almost embarrassed by my own voice.
Silence.
Nothing happened.
I clenched my jaw, exhaling through my nose. "Okay. Yeah. Stupid. Thought so."
But then-
A soft ping echoed in the helmet, and a dot blinked onto the HUD. A small triangle, just above the horizon line, with a numeric distance beside it:
[SHELTER - 8.0 km]
A matching yellow arrow blinked on the compass overlay, pointing a few degrees off center from my current heading.
I blinked. "Holy shit," I murmured.
"Eight kilometers?!" I said louder, almost laughing in disbelief. "That's... that's far. Are there any others nearby?!"
I waited.
The HUD remained unchanged.
No response. No other pings.
"...Figures," I muttered. "Beggars can't be choosers."
I sighed, slowly pushing myself to my feet. My knees trembled a little, and my legs felt like cold gelatin. But I steadied myself.
The compass arrow remained bright. The dot-8km-still blinked patiently ahead.
"Alright," I whispered. "Let's go then, First steps to the unknown..."