Rei's Road to The Stars: Birth of Rome's Revolution

Before the alien moon. Before the long sleep. Before Rome's Revolution, there was Rei Bierak. Born into a collapsing Earth where superstorms battered the coast and nanoplastics poisoned the water, Rei watched his sister Emily fade and his world fracture. Her death planted a seed: Earth could no longer protect its children. He swam to a championship. He fell in love with Sally Reynolds, the world's wealthiest heiress. Their romance was intense and tender, but ultimately doomed. After surviving a psychic awakening triggered by the Chama virus, a feverish plague that nearly killed her in Brazil, Sally broke off their engagement but gave Rei a second chance to reach the stars. Before launch, Rei survived an eco-terrorist explosion involving a flying horse carcass, visited his mentor in a crumbling dome, and shared one final, tearful dinner with Sally and his parents. Then came quarantine. The dehydration protocol. The freezing. The fourteen centuries of silence. Rei's Road to the Stars is the emotional prequel to Rome's Revolution 3455 AD: a story of quiet courage, heartbreak, the Ark Program, Antarctic trials, and the revolutionary Eternium Battery. Rei didn't just dream of escape - he earned it. And Sally was right: Rei's true soulmate wasn't on Earth. She was waiting for him among the stars.