I have to say, when I went to bed last night I didn't expect to wake up in a bunch of tall grass and the sun hitting my face, for a number of reasons.
At first, I naturally thought I was dreaming, but after going through my 'possibly a dream' checklist, nope, I confirmed this was indeed real. I was thankful I slept in my clothes last night or else waking up in the middle of grassland might have been more uncomfortable, but I was still worried about bugs being in my clothes. Naturally after that I was wondering where the heck I was and how I got there, on account of being a pretty boring person, as I stood up and looked around as best I could in the nearly me tall grass and trying to figure out how I would get home from wherever I was, since it looked like I had woken up in the middle of Kansas or something.
Of course, all those thoughts immediately took a backseat in my mind as I quickly realized I very much was not in Kansas.
How might I know this, you might ask, Mental Me? Well, cause as far as I knew Kansas was still on Earth, and the last I checked Earth didn't have two moons hanging above it, which was what I was currently looking at.
So yeah, I clearly wasn't on Earth anymore… which could only mean one thing.
"I've been fucking isekai'd!" I screamed into the alien sky. "And I didn't even get the dignity of being hit by a truck?!"
---
After my little freakout, angry outburst, and a bit of existential dread about being in another world and all the implications of that, I quickly calmed myself down and broke things down into steps.
First, find some form of civilization and figure out where I was. Second, find a means to survive wherever the heck I was to the best of my ability. Third, figure out if there is a way to get back home, on account of having family, friends, and responsibilities that I needed to get back to. That last one made me really hope that this was more of a mental copy isekai, a messed up dream, a badly written fanfic, or some other meta thing that went over my head so at least should the worst happen those I cared for would be alright, but dreading over all that wasn't productive so I put it into the back of my mind and instead focused on what I could do.
"No bars, of course," I sighed as I pocketed my cellphone with a sigh. "Of course it couldn't be that easy, and now I don't even have the internet to distract me from my issues."
Sadly, nothing else I had on me was much help either. I tended to carry little in general, with only my phone and wallet on hand, along with my lack of general outdoor survival skills, I was pretty desperate to find some form of civilization before the day was over. After all, for as pretty looking as this grassland looked I really didn't want to encounter any natural wildlife that might find me an easy snack.
I could not remind myself enough that I was not built for survival, which made all my attempts at figuring out if I had isekai powers or not very disheartening.
My cell phone wasn't a magic cheat tool, I didn't feel like I suddenly had superpowers or enhanced abilities, no spoken word I had used so far had made a holographic screen that only I could see appear before my eyes that looked suspiciously like a RPG character sheet, etc. Sure, there were other potential isekai power options out there, goodness knows I read enough of them, but I wasn't really eager to test those out at this time until I ideally had four walls and roof over my head.
Still, so far it seemed like I had arrived on this world with no extra features, so my need to find a safe place to dwell sooner rather than later had certainly jumped up in importance.
Lacking much in the way of clear landmarks to work with in the middle of all this tall grass, I decided to carefully but quickly, minding possibly stepping on any snakes or nastier creatures that could be around, to one of the decently tall and thick trees that seemed to be the only thing that broke up all the grass as far as I could easily see. Said tree reminded me a lot of that one that the baboon from Lion King lived in, which I had no idea if that was based off a real species back home, and I hoped that maybe if I climbed it at least a little I would have a better view of the area and maybe an idea of where to go.
"And of course you are covered in thorns, cause of course you are," I muttered to myself as I eventually reached the massive tree, being very thankful that it was a pretty temperate day and I wasn't sweating like a pig in the sun's direct light, but still upset that my plan to climb the tree to get a better view of things hit a snag. "Well, at least I can stand on your roots a bit."
I proceeded to do just that, the large roots giving me at least some additional height as I looked around a bit and-
I nearly stumbled off my short perch in shock as what I could only describe as a flying manta raysuddenly, but still rather slowly, possibly even lazily, flew over my head and the tree.
After catching myself, and my breath, from that shock of that, I took a moment to actually watch the creature as it seemed to swim through the air itself not unlike its sea-bound cousins back home would do, soon coming to admire its size and grace as it totally ignored me and continued on its way.
"Well, that was surprising, but at least it doesn't seem to view me as a food source," I muttered to myself as I kept watching the animal in fascination. "It's pretty big, but its slow speed and similar shape to rays back home makes me think it must be a filter feeder or something. Maybe there are sky plankton or something in this world? I hope this isn't a 'sky is an ocean' kind of world and I'm trapped on an island in the middle of a cloud sea or something. That and I really don't want to deal with sky sharks or something."
As I continued to watch the manta ray fly away, and ponder the possible setting I was isekai'd into, I suddenly noticed something the creature flew over that was different from all the tall grass around me, broken up occasionally by other thick thorny trees. It was still grass… but it was grass that had been broken down into what one might generously call a road, or maybe more likely a trail.
That meant it was a migratory path for large animals, or a path regularly used by local civilization to move on around between their settlements. Either way, it was something and much better for my continued survival to follow it rather than pick a random direction to go in through the grass only to eventually drop dead or be eaten by something. So, the road or animal trail it was.
I once more quickly and carefully made my way over to it, finally glad to be able to see where I was putting my feet and enjoying the fact that I no longer had to push tall grass out of my face with every step. But now I had a new dilemma… which way did I go?
"Assuming the planet spins the same way it does back home… if I'm gonna be walking for a while, I would rather not do it with the sun in my eyes," I reasoned to myself as I looked at the sun's relative position. "So, East it is. Well, Eastwards at least."
And with that, my adventure had officially begun!
…well, not really, but at least as I started walking it was a way to keep my mind off of things by imaging all the ways my adventure, wherever the heck I was, could go. Maybe I'd even get rich, find a girlfriend, save a kingdom or something, and become a-
---
My train of thought went on like this for a while, at least an hour according to my mostly useless phone, just thinking up random crap to keep boredom, growing thirst, and the thought of my sore feet at bay as I kept moving forward along the trail. Still, with while the sun was still high in the sky, with no new noticeable landmarks I was starting to worry about what I would have to do if night fell before I-
HOOONNNNKKKK!
"Fucking hell!" I yelled as I instinctively leaped to the side of the road to avoid getting hit by what sounded like a truck honking at me to get out of the way from behind, the irony of that and my current situation not coming to me until a little later, and held my chest as I took in quick breaths to calm my heart as said vehicle rushed past me with a loud humming sound.
Well, I wanted to say it looked like a large truck, but that was only the top part of it, looking like your typical country vehicle, with its bed full of what looked like wheat, fruits, and other similar things. However, the bottom half of it didn't have wheels, heck, it wasn't even touching the ground! Rather, it just floated above it with little distortions in the air that seemed to push against the crumbled grass underneath it.
Before I could focus on that too much I watched as the hovertruck, which was such a cool thing to make note off, made a quick stop not too far ahead of me. Sure, it looked a little well-used and all that, but this was clearly either a very magical or high tech vehicle, which was just making the nerd in me really want to figure out how it all worked. Before I could think more on that, however, I saw an arm and head stick out of the driver's seat of the hovertruck, look back, wave, and shout something at me.
I pointed at myself in confusion at the driver, earning myself another wave, and I broke into a grin and quickly rushed over to him.
Hitchhiking hadn't been my original goal, but if a kind driver was willing to give me a ride after nearly running me over I was willing to take it! Heck, I didn't even care if they were an organ trafficker or something, I just really wanted a ride and to get off my feet.
"Thanks for stopping! Sorry about being in the middle of the road and all, but I-" I started as I reached the driver, a tanned middle-age man, before he started speaking to me.
Or tried to at least, since I had no idea what the heck he was saying at all.
I could only stare dumbly at him as he waved his arm at me, the road, the grassland around us, and looking at me like I was the biggest idiot on the planet, which given my circumstances and the apparent language barrier, I most likely was.
"I'm sorry, but I don't understand," I answered back with a shrug after he looked like he was done speaking.
Now it was his turn to look confused as he spoke up again in a language that didn't sound like anything I heard before back home, to which I could only shake my head again and shrug at his words.
I could guess that before he was complaining about me walking in the middle of the road, but that was about it.
He grunted and turned to his passenger seat, speaking to someone I couldn't see from this angle since the hovertruck was tall and a bit off the ground. Not long afterwards, though, I watched as said passenger crawled over the man and stuck their head out the window to-
…that was a rodian, an alien from a series most true nerds knew about from many different sources. That was all I could process at the moment.
The reptilian alien then spoke to me in what sounded like a different language, but it still meant nothing to me, earning the two another shrug.
The man seemed to take pity on me at that point, sighing and pointing to the back of his truck, speaking a few words, and gesturing with his head.
I could take the hint, the guy was offering me, a random dude in the middle of nowhere who couldn't speak the local tongue at all, a ride, hopefully to the nearest settlement where they could drop me off with a clear conscience rather than leaving me behind to rot. And I could only nod a little dumbly and respond with a, "Thanks", before quickly climbing up a ladder attached to the back and finding a clear spot to quickly sit down.
The man and alien watched me get in, and the second I seemed secure started up the truck again and we started quickly zooming down the road with nary a bump.
Of course, the main thing going through my mind right now was that I had finally figured out where I was, or at least the general setting, thanks to the driver's other passenger.
I was in a galaxy far, far away.
I was in Star Wars… with all its glory, wonder, and horror.
"I'm so fucked," I said to myself while sitting among the grains, fruits, and vegetables that likely had a longer life expectancy than I did right now.