Plot Ideas, Writing Prompts, Character Building: What can I write?

I'm stuck and have no ideas: First round of plots

All main characters will be referred to as they/them so that you can pick their gender, sexuality, and stuff.

One

Genre: Fiction

Setting: Version of Earth, present day (either late spring, summer, or early fall, unless you want to give the protagonist hypothermia)

Basic plot: A writer lives in a remote cabin in the woods about an hour from the nearest town. They are being pressured by their publisher to finish the last book in a series they've been working on for a while, but they have no inspiration (ring a bell, anyone?) and take very long walks to clear their head and try to come up with something. On one of those walks a storm comes in and they get caught in it and get lost. Because they live far away from civilization, it might be a long while before anyone realizes they're missing. Worried and panicked that they might die out in the woods before anyone realized they were gone, the writer strikes out to try to get home. Here's where the story can go in lots of different directions. The protagonist might encounter wild animals, deal with hunger, or have eaten poisonous plants. They might end up stumbling on a river they get caught up in, or get trailed by a wolf pack or another predator (in real life, wolves are very unlikely to do that even if there is little non-human prey around, but this is a book, so hey, who cares about details like that, right?). Eventually, the writer might stumble onto a road, a group of campers, a forest ranger outpost, a hunter cabin, some form of human construct or presence. Hey, they might end up running right into a search party. Either way, they get home after an unpleasant séjour in the woods. The best part? They now know exactly what to do for the last book in the series they've been writing. It's simple, and it answers the question, What has happened/is happening around you?

Two

Genre: Fantasy

Setting: think post-apocalyptic

Basic plot: Only humans with the potential for superhuman abilities survive the death of the world, so there aren't a lot of them, and all have some sort of magical ability. Any surviving plants and animals are morphed, so all of the creatures are recognizable as originally from real life, but here are stronger, faster, and more durable in some way which let them survive the end of the world, which was caused by the apex of climate change, nuclear meltdowns and such. There are a few cities left, running on solar and water power mostly, and that power is directed mostly to important institutions like hospitals. But then the animals catch something, and it resembles a mutated form of rabies. Some of the animals are immune, and it's for no reason other than luck and chance. The protagonist can be someone who works in the hospital and the story is told through conversations with people attacked by the infected animals, or someone whose job it is to go out and hunt the infected beasts and try to find out what is causing the disease.

Path one (working in the hospital): The protagonist learns the story from people taken to the hospital who have been the victims of the diseased animals. We learn the story as they do, through tales told to the protagonist by the people they're tending to. This path is both harder and simpler, as you have to give stories and personalities to a lot of characters (those injured and talking about their experiences), but in terms of dealing with the setting, most would be happening somewhere in the hospital. It would also be the less violent of the two because any battle scenes, violence, and bloodshed (of the brutal kind, blood samples and stuff don't count) is second-hand and told by a patient. Of course, this is a much more interesting way of writing, giving a captivating feel to your story.

Path two (working in the field): The protagonist here would be out in the wild, hunting and tracking infected animals. They might notice that the diseased beasts are organized, scarily so, and the virus might turn out to make the animals vicious and insane but also part of a hive mind. They might or might not have a partner or team of other hunters working with them with whom the protagonist can speculate and hypothesize with. The carcasses of infected beasts might show the presence of ticks or fleas of a very unusual color or maybe a kind of fungus growing on the bodies that has never been seen before. From there, they might bring a sample of the fungus/ticks/fleas to show the researchers in the hospital lab (the hospital and lab and all other scientific and research facilities are grouped to keep electricity use over large areas at a minimum.) The scientists might find a cure for it, and the hunters can go out and start setting traps to capture infected animals to administer the cure.

The third possibility: Use both! If you can't decide between the two, have two main characters and bounce from one point of view to another. Hey, have the hunter get injured and visit the hospital and spark a friendship/romance/hate with the character working in the hospital.

(That's all for now, but I promise to add more soon.)