soft brakes and brake light comes on-help[

I thought that red "BRAKE SYSTEMS" light meant my brakes were working under hard braking. Little did I know, it meant I had no brakes till I hit a tree going backwards at 5 mph. Later I found out the reservoir for my front discs was empty. I filled it up and you could see the MC start to leak weeks later. It was almost like the MC was sweating through its pores.