there was a sound that roused at his consciousness -- he had just managed to slip off; which, in itself, was a dangerous thing to do when alone in the hell that was the world they lived in. he had learned, early on, how to stir quickly and easily in order to try and preserve his life. if he was perfectly honest with himself, his self preservation had tipped downwards quite a bit since he had nearly died -- and he would’ve too. some days, even years later, part of him wished he had. he had no idea where the self dubbed operation bite mark was. no IDEAS where addy was, or if she was even still alive.
there was no california. no light on the horizon to keep moving towards -- nothing to continue fighting for, except for a fool’s hope that he would find something to latch onto to continue moving.
he’s standing, albeit reluctantly, and using the wall as a crutch to momentarily get himself into an upright position -- ignoring the lack of appropriate response from his bad leg; taking an off weight step towards the noise as he cradled his gun with both hands.
“who’s there?” he called out, a harshness underlying in his tone that he had learned over the years to cover up whatever tentativeness or fear might be harbored there. fear and hesitance would only get him killed, as far as he was concerned, and keep him from finding a tether of hope to latch onto. “ain’t nothing here for you to steal -- and it would just be a waste of time to kill me, i encourage you to move on.”