The clouds had finally started to clear after the long terrible storm.

The little girl stood up all alone, looking from side to side at the wreckage that surrounded her.

And there it was... a yellow flower, the only thing not harmed during the terrible downfall of rain.

She looked at it silently, her eyes watery, filled with tears.

She walked carefully through the chaos that lay all over the land. Her small hand touched the flower and with just that moment of closure, she closed her eyes and felt it all go through her.

The emotions, the fear... the pain.

The stem of the flower had been plucked and she held it there, looking at the petals and whispering the words as she slowly picked one off after the other.

"I made it, I didn't make it... I made it, I didn't make it,"

She was down to the two last petals as she whispered the words in fear.

"I-I made it..." Last petal, "I didn't make it..."

When she opened her eyes again, she looked on ahead to see there was nothing there except a woman in the distance... a shining white dress on her and the girl watched her in silence. Tears welled in her little eyes.

The woman began to approach her, walking across the debris and offered out her hand to the girl.

The girl looked down at it, so confused before reaching out to take the hand that was offered, only to see it open up and inside it was a last petal.

"You made it..." The woman whispered, and the girl crooked her eyebrows confused. She blinked her eyes a few times, trying to understand this and see clearly, but when she looked back over at the woman... she was gone.

Because she didn't exist... not yet at least... not yet.

The little girl was soon found by others and they took her into the shelter, looking after her and helping raise her to be big and strong.

But her heart still hurt inside, for her parents were not with her... they were somewhere she could not go.

She... was an orphan.

She kept that yellow petal in a little air-tight case that hung with a cord around her little neck.

She watched the new storm come years later, standing by the window of her flat and how the waters ravaged the land and took all... leaving nothing...

When it was over she walked across the land once again, and saw an elderly lady in the distance, just standing there in the middle of it all.

The young woman that girl had become, she widened her eyes when she saw this elderly person alone and unprotected. She approached her gently, reaching out her hand to pull her to safety. The elderly woman only smiled her way, giving her wrinkly hand to the young woman and placing something in the woman's hand.

The woman paused, before opening her eyes and seeing what she had been given.

Another petal... just this time, red.

She looked at it quietly, before back at the elderly woman and saw she was gone.

She kept the petal close to her heart, adding it to the yellow one in the case...

Many years passed, and many a storm too.

But it was the night before the pain that she woke up. She looked in the darkness at her now wrinkled hands, and slowly got out of bed, as she walked over to her window and saw a shining white young woman in the distance.

She gasped, coming out of the house as fast as she could and approached the ghostlike spirit, whispering to it.

"Where are you from?"

The young woman only smiled a smile that would fill one with love and serenity. She lifted her hand out and the woman took it.

When she opened her old wrinkled hand up she saw it was a petal...

A black petal that looked as dark as ash itself.

In the distance a storm was brewing. The biggest and most dangerous storm yet.

"What is going to happen?"

The shining ghost woman smiled again at her as she said, "You won't make it this time..."

The elderly woman held still in fear when she heard these words and looked down at her hand.

"You won't..."

"And... how do you know this...?" The old lady asked and the ghost just crooked her head to the side gently, replying.

"Don't you know who I am...?"

The old lady blinked her eyes, surprised by this answer, but when her eyes opened again... the ghost was gone. The old lady was by herself once more...

She took a deep breath in before closing her eyes and smiling with tears...

The storm surrounded her on every side, every corner and space taken over by the wind and lashing rain.

"I know..." She whispered to herself as her life began to go, fading from her body in the waters of death, "I know..."

She smiled softly and let herself be covered by the storm.

"You are me..." She smiled with tears in her eyes, seeing in her heart her parents and friends... all who had gone before, "And I made it..."

She smiled in tears.

"I'm free..."