We've come to the chapter that I know, some of you have waited for months - what Effie went through. When I asked (on my tumblr), most people wanted to see the chapter in both Haymitch's and Effie's POV. They want to know Effie's experience and how Haymitch felt when he found out so I incorporated both of their POV in this chapter. I'm worried that it might be confusing (so to clarify, italics will be Effie's and non-italic is Haymitch's).

Warning for torture narrative.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

The smell of old papers hit him first. The documents bound in this file was years old, buried in the City's archives since the war ended. How many years had it been? Less than five years, he calculated. Between then and now, their lives had woven paths and created memories that seemed far from the horror of the past - the twins were a year old and they were married nearly one and a half years ago - but if the last few days were anything to go by, the horrors never truly left her just like how it had never left him. He still live in the arena on bad days.

Haymitch thumbed through the first few pages of the files which contained expected background information of the detainee. There was a picture of her taken on the day she was capture, he guessed, details of her date of birth, place of birth, her family members and known connections. Haymitch saw his own name on it.

He skimmed through these, not really giving it his full attention. He flipped through the pages that gave the details of Effie's formal education up until she became an Escort. The Capitol certainly kept a close tab on its people and he briefly entertained the thought of the kind of information that could be found in his own file. He paused to take in a few noted peculiarities on record. Effie excelled in mathematics although he wasn't sure why this was of particular interest to the Capitol and when she was nineteen, had taken an architectural course on ruined, historical sites. He understood why an architecture course would send alarm bells ringing. It did not gel with Effie's image.

The information he was interested in came in the next section. Here, Haymitch stopped; his finger absent-mindedly folded the corner of the page. It wasn't too late to put the file away. He hadn't come across any information that would completely shatter Effie's trust in him.

He reached out for his whiskey and poured it into a fine cut glass. It was clear that he was deliberately, prolonging reading Effie's file. He brought the drink to his lips, letting the familiar burn of the whiskey comfort him. Held back by the weight of an enormous guilt, Haymitch closed the file.

The pacing began almost immediately.

"You'd wear out the carpet, Haymitch," Effie would say except she wasn't here to admonish him.

There were people that he could call, people who had been there with her; Johanna, Annie or he could even ask Peeta. The boy's cell had been next to hers, after all. But he knew Johanna was a dead end having refused to budge time and time again. Annie was risky. She might blank out and Haymitch didn't need her going back to places out of their reach. Not without Finnick to coax her out and especially not when little Finn was depending on her. Which left Peeta but … did he really want to throw the boy back into his nightmare for information?

In the end, whether it was an act of desperation or extreme folly, Haymitch scraped his chair back and sat down, pulling the file towards him. He brushed his thumb lightly over Effie's name.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said to the empty room. "I don't believe in your code of silence, not when it's harming us all."

The page was easy to find from where he had dog-eared it earlier. Haymitch flipped to it.

Phase 1; Day 1 to Day 5 – Isolation

She clenched her fist tight causing the nails to dig into the soft flesh of her palm. This was it - the beginning of her end. She played a dangerous game gathering intelligence and information important to the Rebellion and was always aware of the risks involved. But knowing and experiencing occupied two different spectrums. Effie was terrified. She had no reason to believe that she would make it out alive.

Effie stumbled her way through the corridor, all the while aware of the gun pressing against her back. Her breath caught in her throat at the thought of them letting lose a bullet and having it lodged in her spine. She would be paralysed for life if the bullet did not kill her.

The guards threw her into a windowless cell which was shaped like a pod, hence the reason why the high security prison was nicknamed The Pod. From the moment the door slid shut behind her, Effie was left entirely alone. Time became a distant concept and for someone so used to running her life around a schedule down to the last minute, the inability to tell time was affecting her greatly. Sunlight did not filter through her pod for her to gauge time and food came at odd hours each day to throw her off. Effie occupied herself by talking quietly and tried to give herself encouragement in the bleak situation to see through each day.

A page for a day and Haymitch read through all five pages describing in detail Effie's first five days as a political prisoner. There was no surprises, nothing out of the ordinary. It was something all detainees went through in the beginning stages except some of them were beaten but Effie had been largely left to her own devices. She had not been physically harmed and abused.

It was not something that put him at ease. These pages only accounted for the first five days when he knew that Effie had been held for weeks, and judging by her nightmares and flashbacks, she had suffered far worse and had seen terrible, unspeakable things.

Haymitch poured more whiskey, filling the glass to the brim. The audio monitor sat on the desk, not picking up any sound from the nursery. He had taken the audio monitor away from the nightstand in their bedroom so as not to disturb Effie.

Everything was quiet and peaceful except for the pounding in Haymitch's chest.

Phase 1: Day 6 – Social Recalibration

Being a circular holding cell, the Pod was slowly getting under her skin. Effie sat in the middle of the cell with her knees drawn. The guards found her that way. They hauled her to her feet, flanked her on each side and nudged her out of the holding cell.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"You don't get to ask questions."

They made a sharp right turn into a long stretch of corridor that looked exactly as hers had been, making any attempt of escaping difficult and otherwise impossible. A door slid open and they pushed her inside. A young woman with green eyes stared up at her.

In her haste to reach the young woman, Effie tripped over her own feet but once they were close enough, Effie pulled her into a hug.

"Annie," her voice shook. "Annie."

Annie Cresta stiffened in Effie's arms. Effie knew the victor, of course. She knew all the living victors by name even if they hardly met and Effie had only met Annie once after she won her Games. Annie was never a mentor thus their interactions were limited but to see another human, a familiar face was not something Effie knew she needed until now.

"Escort - Effie Trinket," Annie whispered.

She nodded, the tears stung her eyes. "Yes."

Annie must have been left alone for days too because she clung to Effie as desperately as Effie was clinging to her.

"Have you seen anyone else?" Effie asked.

Annie shook her head mutely. Her eyes were wide as she pointed to her ear and gestured for Effie to sit with her on the floor of their pod. Annie leaned against her as they listened to the screams of other prisoners.

"They're going to come for us next," Annie stated as a matter of fact, covering both ears with her hands.

"Not for you. You don't know anything about any of this, do you?"

She turned towards Effie then, her eyes were asking the question that she couldn't voice. Effie lowered her eyes.

"That's why you're here," Annie nodded.

Effie could neither confirm nor deny it because the door opened and Johanna Mason joined their company, spewing obscenities at her captors. She had taken a beating and was bleeding in several places. The guards could have placed her in any other cell but she was there as an example to Annie and Effie of what could happen to them.

Johanna's eyes glittered with hatred as she made a rude gesture. When she turned to look at her present company, Effie could feel the anger burning and she was glad. If Johanna could still be mad, it meant that they had not managed to break her yet.

"Present company included, this cell is better than the last one. Did you hear them scream?" she flopped down across from them, wincing in pain but trying to hide it.

"Yes," Effie said.

Annie had covered her ears again and Johanna eyed her before turning her attention back on Effie.

"You're Capitol," she threw the words out but with none of the malice Effie expected from the woman. "What are you doing here?"

"Same reason as you – they want something out of me," Effie answered cautiously.

"If you're here, I'm guessing you're not a loyalist," Johanna raised a dubious eyebrow. She took her time thinking about it for a minute, her brows creased as she began to piece it all together. Johanna lowered her voice. "Haymitch had an informant. Someone on the inside."

Effie nodded.

Johanna stared at her and then she sneered.

"Who would have thought? I still don't like you," Johanna made it clear, wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth. "But if we're gonna be spending time in the same room until one of us is beaten to death - " Annie made a strangled noise of distress, rocking back and forth. Effie glared at Johanna. "- then I guess I could tolerate it with a non-conformist."

Annie's eyes darted between the two women. She held her hand out to Johanna and then to Effie, the latter was quick to accept it. Johanna rolled her eyes when she understood Annie's intention but gave a grunt as she sat on the floor next to Annie's left and extended her hand. They sat with their hands linked. Annie had stopped shaking.

Phase 2: Day 7 to 11 – Sensory Deprivation

Annie was nodding off on Effie's shoulder when she was thrown back as the guards came for Johanna and Effie. Johanna was dragged by her hair out of the pod, kicking and screaming. Effie sank her teeth on one of the guards' arm, something so reprehensible she would not have done it otherwise and was slapped across the face. Their screams reduced Annie into a ball with her hands once again clamped shut over her ears, muttering under her breath.

Johanna and Effie were separated, taken into opposite direction. They threw her into a room, pitch black and empty as far as she could tell. Effie struggled for breath as she realized that they meant to lock her up here in isolation. Again.

"No, don't leave me, please," she turned, hands outstretched towards the guards. They laughed in her face even as she ran towards the door only to have it slammed shut in her face.

Effie pounded on the door, screaming for the guards to let her out. The panic was overwhelming. She couldn't see. She wanted to be let out.

Effie shouted for help, cried out helplessly for Annie and Johanna and Haymitch. She cried for her kids. If Katniss was the face of the Rebellion than she would save her, wouldn't she? She would come. One of her kids would come. Peeta would make sure they would all be taken away from The Pod when the time came. Her voice was hoarse and she felt the fight leaving her. Effie slid against the wall in exhaustion.

Darkness became her companion.

It made no difference to her if she close or open her eyes. She wasn't even sure if her eyes were open most of the time. There was nothing that she could see, not even her hands when she waved it in front of her face. Effie was so concerned with her inability to see that she failed to realize until some days later that the room was probably soundproof. She had not heard anything from outside – no screams from prisoners or guards talking to themselves or footsteps along the corridor – except for her own breathing. Nothing came from the outside and no one came for her.

They had deprived her of her sight and made her ears useless.

For days, Effie fumbled in the dark, walking with her hands stretched out against the wall, trying desperately to orientate herself. The texture on the wall and on the floor was the same.

Effie felt herself losing her sanity which sent her into hysterics. It came when she couldn't tell if she was leaning against the wall or lying on the floor. The fear was slowly eating her inside out.

She called the room the BlackHole. They were sucking her away from existence.

"My name is Effie Trinket," she said out loud.

"You have not been permitted to speak, traitor."

Effie glanced up. There must be a speaker system because that was where the voice was coming from.

"My name is Effie Trinket," she whispered.

If she didn't remind herself, she might just forget who she was.

It was a mind game, plain and simple as that. It worked so well to disorientate the prisoners; having been kept in isolation for days with no news and explanation only to be pulled out and left in a cell with people she knew. It gave her some semblance of comfort, brief though it was and simply because it was within their power, the guards yanked her out to put Effie through sensory deprivation which was psychologically designed to break anyone's mind.

Effie was no different. They were trying to erode her personality and from what he had read thus far from her file, their method proved to be working.

Haymitch couldn't imagine what it was like. He had often passed out only to wake up in dark corners at odd places but it was different because he could always get up and walk off, back to his house or back to the Penthouse. He had control, an important element missing in Effie's situation.

It explained her behavior a lot. He understood the reason her hand would start roaming the room, moving bottles on the vanity so that it would clink against each other when he switched off the lights. He had thought it was her organized nature, rearranging the bottles neatly but he was wrong. If she was on the bed when he turned the lights off, her hand would start drifting towards him until she made contact with some parts of him. It had irritated him last time but Haymitch was used to it now.

The reports were so detailed that Haymitch felt the horror so acutely although it was nothing compared to what Effie must have felt. They had left her alone in the dark room but they had monitored her constantly and noted down her behaviors and reactions.

He was furious certainly but it was years too late. It was clear that to the guards, the prisoners were nothing more than garbage, worthless the moment their usefulness expired.

Phase 3 - Day 12 to 15; Sensory Stimulation

Sleep came and went in sporadic cycles accompanied by haunting dreams so when the lights came, Effie assumed she was dreaming. She was probably already dead and this was the light they promised at the end of her tunnel.

Except that was not the case.

The BlackHole was flooded with bright, searing lights. Instinctively, Effie shut her eyes and buried her face in the crook of her arm. The ferocious beam pierced through her eyes and after days of darkness, her eyes hurt so very badly. This went on for hours.

She struggled to adjust to this sudden change and then she heard it.

The BlackHole was dark again. The lights had been snuffed but she heard their voices loud and clear over the speaker system. It took her a moment as she searched her rusty memories before she placed what was so familiar about the voices.

Grady Fischer and Lorna Dame.

They were her first pair of tributes - cousins. Lorna died at the Cornucopia. Grady died two days later, drowned at a lake by the tribute from District Five.

Their voices had been taken during their interviews as they introduced themselves to the crowd and to Caesar.

For the next couple of hours, the speaker system played the voices of all her tributes in a loop, ending with Katniss and Peeta, before going back to Grady and Lorna.

Effie yelled and begged for them to stop but it was in vain because she couldn't even hear her own voice over the recordings, but still she screamed hoping someone out there could hear her and end the madness. Days and long stretches of silence made the whole experience ten times worse. She never wanted to hear another voice again. She craved for the quiet now, for the vacuum that sealed her from this pollution.

Her descend into instability was being observed by the guards behind the glass window, unnoticed by her.

She took a leaf out of Annie's book and curled into a ball, with her hands clamped over her ears. It did little to block out their voices.

Effie emerged and lifted her head up when the noises stopped as suddenly as they came and silence once again reign the BlackHole. It was dark and quiet and she was used to this.

She did not know it yet but the visual stimulus came next.

Effie was limp as a rag doll, allowing the guards to lift her up without a fight as she was roughly pushed into a chair. Effie only began to struggle when they strapped her head, trapping her so there was no way else for her to look but forward.

A screen was lowered.

Confusion had long abandoned her. Effie had stopped questioning and had resigned herself to whatever was concocted for her. They had started playing the grainy video and as the room came into focus the terror crawled out of the crevices of her skin and swarmed her whole. She recognised the room. She had not stepped foot in it for years but she knew it all too well.

The panic weaved itself around her throat and Effie thrashed against her seat.

The video of her sister's death was playing on the screen for her to watch and this was the first time she saw her sister taking her own life. She had lived with the knowledge for years but watching it with her own eyes was different, it was horrifying. Effie had no knowledge that her sister's bedroom had been bugged.

Effie snarled and hissed and cried. She screamed and shouted and pleaded. She swore she would kill them all. There were cuts on her forehead from the straps that held her in place, injuring her as she struggled.

She tried shutting her eyes but each time she did, a jolt of electricity would run up her thumb. Her nerves were frayed. There was too much stimuli after a period of nothingness, too damn much.

As was the case with the auditory stimulation, the video was played on repeat. Her sister was alive, bleeding on the floor and then she had stopped breathing.

Alive, bleeding, dead. Alive, bleeding, dead. Over and over and over.

The video stopped abruptly.

Effie had no more tears left to shed. She merely stared blankly at the screen in front of her.

They released her from the chair and left her curled in a fetal position on the floor, shaking like a leaf.

Effie was barely even aware of her own existence. She wanted to die. Eventually, she supposed she must have fallen asleep where she dreamt horrible things about her sister and her tributes - dead people who stretched out their arms and crooked their fingers, beckoning for her to join them. She wanted the release. She needed it.

The temperature dropped steadily and the chill wrapped around her bones. Effie pushed herself up and pressed herself against the wall. The BlackHole was no longer dark. It was illuminated by a dim light. The smell hit her first, sharp and metallic.

The scarlet liquid was flowing slowly on the floor towards her, covering the surface area at a steady pace. Effie took deep shuddering breaths, hyperventilating and trying to find a way to escape.

She couldn't.

There was no dry island for her to stand on as the floor bleed.

The chapter has been split into two because it was too long and it was difficult for me to proof-read it all. I really didn't want to because i saw the Guest's reviewer's comment (I'm sorry!) but I haven't been feeling well. The next part will be up tomorrow, if not, within the next few days.

In the meantime, please leave a review. I hope it hasn't been confusing for you where the POV is concerned. Thanks for reading :)