For the first time in a long time, Annie set her senses free.
She had learned when she was young that the input she received from the world around her could be overwhelming. The visions were one thing -- past, present, could be, might have been, she could never be sure -- but the way she could read the world around her was a whole other story. It could just be too much at times; her mother had trained her how to ignore it, the way the eyes delete the nose from their line of vision.
She couldn't mute it entirely; sometimes Annie could get overwhelmed without even trying. But now, she needed it -- needed to rely on what she could see, hear, and smell to try and get a line on what the hell was going on.
She closed her eyes, and listened. When she opened them again, she took a deep breath.
"You barely have a pulse," she croaked out.
It couldn't be real. She had heard stories; her mother had always been so full of stories. But she'd never really believed... in spite of everything she had seen, in spite of the video evidence, in spite of every vision and every strange thing going bump in the night she had encountered during her career, she had never believed.