A leaf got whisked away by the wind of the hurricane.

But before that leaf got blown, the hurricane had been going on for some time over a forest, knocking down trees like bowling pins, making the dirt into the floor of a swimming pool, and even destroying boulders. The forest had never seen anything like it. It was usually such a peaceful place, with nothing to disrupt the nuts and berries scattered throughout it.

And now not a person or animal was to be found through all the coldness of the rain and the destruction of the wind. But that wind could lift things too, which gets us to our little green leaf.

Near the end of the ruin, dirt got washed away by the rain, revealing a leaf in the center. That leaf floated its way to the top of the pool. The "view" from the surface showed the small amount of trees that were still there, with their bodies being deep in water. It would take a long time for this place to recover.

The forest was no longer a good spot to be in, not much fortune would be brought for the leaf nor could the leaf bring its own fortune.

But the wind could bring fortune, so it brought it once more. It brought a gust to whisk away the leaf. The leaf bobbed up and down, but was on a fast path going northeast. After a couple minutes the world beyond the fallen forest was visible (or would be visible if there was anyone there to see it). There was a hill sharply curving up near the edge of the forest, so it acted as a wall for the pool. The leaf got blown into the side of the hill (above the water's surface), and then hobble-skipped up the wall with the wind.

After blowing over a small stretch of the hill top, the ground curved down again, but not as sharply this time. The leaf tumbled down into a dark cave, where it got to float on a pool again.

Wind couldn't reach it anymore, only the current of the river could. The leaf was wet as could be, and had narrowly avoided breaking, but it was magnificently strong. It had endured the dirt and pained through the rain. Now all it had to do was float across the river to who knew where.

It was a slow current and a pitch-black cave. The leaf never penetrated the surface to get under water, it managed to just go with the flow. Nobody could tell where the cave was going, or how long the leaf floated for...

And that's because the truth is that were no sentient beings left in the world.

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There were people and animals...at some point at least, but one day they all just disappeared. There was nobody left to know when it was or what caused it. All human creation had weathered away, hence why only natural land remained.

The leaf knew nothing of this or of anything (though it did "know" how to stay strong) and when it finally got to the opening of that cave it was greeted with a sharp cliff dropping down into a desert. The environment was so different that the leaf could have been floating for hours, or days, or years, who knows?

But it dropped down into a soft spot of sand, still getting lucky enough to not break. It sat there for an amount of time and the sun had dried the water off of it, maybe drying it a little too much. The leaf was made for forests, not deserts. It was close to withering. But yet another gust of wind came, not from a storm this time. It was just a nice gust, cooling off the desert a little and leading the leaf forward. It was the first time that something had been completely good to the leaf. It didn't have to toughen through something just to get ahead. It was nice.

At this point the leaf was surrounded by nothing but the empty, sandy landscape. And then... something... about the leaf caused a very unexpected event. The sand started swirling around it and then got dumped to form little mounds some distance away from it. No wind caused this though. The leaf was still in place, but somehow no sand was below it.

What was below it was a large light blue pattern in a circular outline. It was a horizontally symmetrical cross-like a "+" sign- with squiggly lines going diagonally in each open section of it. It was on a very flat stone surface, which was quite the odd feature for something that was a little below sand. The pattern on the stone was faded and looked like it could have been ancient - that it is until it started glowing and it was as clear as day. It could have been the leaf's slight weight that caused the butterfly effect for that sequence, or it could been some property of the leaf, or maybe it was just coincidence, but that magic happened and was about to keep happening. Because rays started shining from the symbol, and then some force launched the leaf far, far up. Light was leaping out of the symbol, much of it going farther than an eye could see.

Even that desert wasn't going to be so barren anymore. Something was returning to the world, something special.

The leaf fluttered over this, with another wind pushing it (in the opposite direction, back to the direction of the cave this time.) It danced over the light and slowly hopped across the tops and side regions of the cave. After a long time it got back to its home: the forest, which was starting to recover. The leaf lived there as the forest grew on, and our little leaf eventually decomposed. It had been a tough life, but a long one and a meaningful one that ended calmly.

And right above the leaf an oak tree came to grow. It was at the heart of the forest, being one of the biggest and strongest trees there. And one day a small gust came that made one of its acorns fall to the dirt.

But it meant a lot, because this time the acorns could be eaten.