[i]Orange had never been his color.

It was a stupid thing to be worrying about right now, he knew. The possibility- no, the certainty- of imprisonment and medical experimentation was in his mind, of course. But he was a long way from Alabama, and the shock and horror had worn off in the long hours since his capture. He had had more than a full day to think, the drugs they had pumped him with keeping him in a state of constant drowsiness, but not quite sleep. 

And Keith Booker hated the way he looked in this orange prison jumpsuit.

To his half-asleep mind, it was just adding insult to injury, one more indignity to whatever lay ahead, the fear having worn itself to a dull edge.

Then the world lurched around him. [/i]

Follow the tracks. It just made sense.

Keith had been rabbit hunting with his dad a few times before the elder man had realized how little his son enjoyed the sport. Despite his distaste for the outdoors, that one piece of wisdom stuck in Keith's mind as he stared down at the boot tracks in the soft mud. He still felt the heat of the wreck at his back, only a hundred yards or so behind him. He had gotten lucky finding these tracks leading away from the scene. As he looked around in bewilderment at the forest and mountains, it seemed logical to find someone else- strength in numbers. Maybe he'd get real lucky and find that real cute boy that had been sat down a few seats behind him, but first things first.

His mind seemed to be working again. The excitement of the plane crashing must have cut through the sedatives they had given him, pure adrenaline whittling his drowsiness away to nothing. Good. Keith knew he needed to stay sharp in this situation, otherwise it would likely end badly. Being stuck out in the middle of the wilderness seemed only marginally preferable to being stuck in some hellhole facility. With that in mind, he set out after the tracks, hoping it would lead him to other escapees and not straight to his persecutors. 

[i] If he had been fully awake, he wouldn't have dared to try it. Not with an armed guard standing right there. He'd have been filled with buckshot the millisecond he became solid again, that or passed out and suffocated. If he didn't just fall through the fuselage.

As it was, though, the guard next to him seemed too occupied with the plane plummeting in altitude to notice Keith abruptly stand up in his seat, the leg irons and restraints clattering on the floor. Keith was solid again, grabbing a seat back for support.

Someone screamed. [/i]

A blue lake appeared before him, a view like a postcard. Out of the trees, Keith looked around, hoping to spy whoever it was he had been tracking all this time. There, on the shoreline, a small cluster of people, all of them in that godawful orange jumpsuit. "Hey!" he yelled to them, breaking into a run. He didn't care how much noise he made, he was happy just to have found someone, anyone else. This wasn't something he had any desire to face alone. "Hold up, folks, I'm coming to you!"