Hermit to Pandemic: Genre Undetermined

She saw the facemasks before she read the news. She'd been hermiting for a season out in the woods, and hadn't expected to walk back in on a pandemic. It just didn't seem right. She stared around her, still half caught in still tree branches swaying in the wind, the rustle of the leaves and the shush of the stream. It seemed a world crowded, jammed, overflowing with people, but she realized that to her normal eyes, it would have seemed the streets were deserted. A third of the people she usually saw were out. That was when she began to get worried, when concern for her family pushed past the stillness of the trees and the peace of the night under the stars.

Inspiration: Ah, the news. Woo, swineflu!
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: Though I like the character, and the idea of hermiting.