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The muffled stomping of the peacekeepers' many feet could be heard through the cell walls. It was new to one of the most remote sections of the prison. Usually it was relatively quiet, apart from the moans and shouts from the neighbouring cells. Effie struggled to rise, pulling her head away from the cold floor.
As the iron door swung open with a clatter, Effie saw the peacekeeper standing on the threshold with a whip in his hand. Just from the mere sight of him, the girl immediately huddled in the corner of the cell. The peacekeeper was staring smugly at the woman, as if he took pleasure in seeing a hunted and helpless victim whose life now depended on him. Effie gulped when she noticed behind the peacekeeper a girl beating in a hysterical fit, her blood leaving long indecipherable patterns.
The man folded the whip in half, buckling it to his belt. Snorting and grabbing the woman behind him by the hair, winding it around his fist, causing the stranger to howl and the already terrified Effie to hunch back against the wall.
- Shut up,’ the peacekeeper's still calm voice barely penetrated the veil that shrouded the prisoner's mind. He pulled the strands tighter, realising he was causing more pain.
- Please stop! - Effie shouted pleadingly, realising that the girl was simply in no condition to ask for help. The peacekeeper gave out something like a smirk and abruptly let go of the girl, causing her to cry out for the final time in a half-smile.
- Thank you,’ Effie whispered, shuddering at the thought of being in the poor girl's shoes.
- Get up, Miss Trinket,’ the peacekeeper said with a wicked grin, ’and follow me. Take care of her,’ he said with a final glance at the poor thing.
This spectacle was personal to the capital diva herself, that much was clear. The realisation that someone was being hurt through her fault made her heart clench and beat frantically, bleeding with a sense of her own insignificance and worthlessness.
Her legs were buckling, her only support about to go. Clinging to the rough wall, clawing at her hands, she rose slowly, letting her stiff legs get a little more used to standing.
She could still hear the hoarse, soul-penetrating screams of the innocent girl. Then the iron door rattled shut, isolating Effie from all those sounds. She could go back and help her now, but there was a peacekeeper following behind and that girl obviously didn't want her dead. Wait, did anyone need her at all? Dead or alive, what's the difference? Nobody's gonna get you out of here. Deal with it, Trinket.
Turns, tunnels, corridors, it's like an old film. She doesn't memorise the route, doesn't even try. Something, namely the foul odour of medicine and alcohol suggests that their destination is torture room number 5. With a couch, a small table with syringes and perfectly white walls.
In the semi-darkness it is barely possible to make out what is actually a couple of centimetres away, taking into account the semi-fainting state, to focus the vision is an impossible mission.
My hearing, strained to the limit, picks up the shuffling of another pair of boots. And this step is vaguely familiar, so striking to the weakened consciousness that Effie raises her head sharply.
- Come on, lad, get on with your business, I've been assigned to her. - A man in a doctor's coat and a red splattered mask, heading towards them. The timbre of the hoarse voice draws attention, exactly as much as the inquisitor's step.
Effie tries to focus her vision on the man's face, but the effort is futile. The image in front of her eyes swims, painting strange, murky pictures. It's like looking through the smudges on a dirty glass. But Effie still manages to catch the general features: something dark on his face (apparently stubble), longish hair, and two blue dots. She feels his hand gently take her forearm and pull her along. For a brutal inquisitor who watches his victims die in horrible convulsions around the clock, he's too kind.
Effie was almost in the medic's arms as the peacekeeper pulled her back slightly.
- New worker? - Even in his tone it was clear how distrustful he looked at the man.
There was silence, and clammy fear squeezed her throat. If she found herself in the hands of a peacekeeper who wasn't happy about something, she'd get more than a horse's dose of the drug, which wouldn't make her feel any better.
The fog was enveloping and for some reason, one could feel the support of the inquisitor. He was practically holding Effie, keeping her from falling.
- I can't hear the answer. - The peacekeeper's menacing voice and the sound of a gun being pulled from its holster.
She squirmed, everything seemed like an illusion, it doesn't work like that, it's unreal. But the deafening sound and the nauseating smell of gunpowder sobered her, dispelling the veil. The peacekeeper's grip loosened. Not at all.
There was the thud of a gun hitting the ground, followed by a thud. She no longer felt the peacekeeper's blood-chilling presence behind her, only his hot breath beside her. She slowly opened her shrouded eyes, but no longer from the intoxicating drugs, but from tears. Before she had time to come to her senses, she was already being dragged somewhere deeper into these dark tunnels - back into the darkness. Effie could hear the hurried footsteps of the peacekeepers talking to each other as they gradually turned to running. The medication began to poison her mind again. An impenetrable wall rose before her eyes and Effie fell to the ground, losing contact with the arm of the man who was pulling her away from danger.
Darkness, there was nothing, only a measured beeping. It seems to fade in and out again at intervals of four heartbeats.
The body can barely be felt. What is it? Death? No, the heart continues to beat. Tangled in a clod of thoughts in no way wanted to restore the usual chain of thoughts.
Let's start with a simple one.
- My name is Effie Trinket,’ my hand was starting to die off, and I felt a slight tingle in my skin, “my home was the Capitol,” I managed to tense my muscles slightly, ’I was the curator of District Twelve. - My fingers begin to move away from the numbness. - I was in prison, survived several tortures and interrogations,’ goosebumps start to run from my neck and down my spine. - I'm a rebel.
Effie opens her eyes abruptly, almost jumping up on the medical couch. In performing this action, she ripped several tubes out of her arm, which she had been trying so hard to move.
Effie looked round, and noticing the painfully familiar surroundings, clenched her hands so tightly that her knuckles turned a bluish colour. The beeping of the machine next to her intensified, announcing her over-excitement. But Effie paid no attention to it. Her gaze was fixed on the steel medical instruments resting on a table against the opposite wall. It was just as quiet, lonely, and smelled of a mixture of medicine and blood.
- Maybe I've been moved to another torture chamber,’ Effie thought, and involuntarily clenched into a ball. A peacekeeper could burst in here at any time and beat her to a pulp. What about that inquisitor in the soiled dressing gown? What happened to him? After all, he wanted to save the poor capitol woman and would have saved her if she hadn't collapsed on the floor at the most inopportune moment.
The thought that the rescuer had not had it easy and that everything that had happened was entirely her fault, did not give rest.
The girl carefully began to unhook the bandage from her arm, which, as it turned out, was attached to the catheter. Another oddity.
She stared at her arm in a stupor. Usually the drug was administered straight through a syringe, without bothering. And certainly wouldn't have been allowed to rest on the couch. After the torture, she would be taken back to her cell, whether she recovered or not.
Such memories of her not-so-pleasant encounters with the stone floor made the wound on her cheek sore.
A burning sensation brought Effie to her senses, distracting her from pointlessly looking at the bandage.
Thinking activity was slowly being restored. If she was here now, it was entirely possible that the medic had managed to soften the peacekeeper somehow after all. But how?
A simple exercise of remembering what had happened a few minutes ago. But she had no idea how long she'd been here.
Her gaze fell on the catheter again and Effie sighed involuntarily. It was incredibly hard to make sense of anything when you were almost lost in space.
Footsteps were heard outside the door, making her whole body instantly tense up and wanting to cower far away in a corner.
Effie was so helpless and weak now that any movement was worth the effort. Though her thoughts and memories were slowly falling into place, her body was still reeling from the recent shock. Effie got off the couch as quickly as she could and made her way to the table opposite. Her legs felt woozy. Her legs were wobbly, and she couldn't stand up to her full height.
Grabbing onto whatever was in her way, she reached her destination. She leaned on the table and toppled over it, tripping over the wheel. Effie still managed to stay on her feet, but with great effort. At the knee, Effie felt an unpleasant tingling and warmth. One of the tools on the floor had caught her flesh during the fall. Grabbing the first object that came to hand, Effie slowly walked towards the door that was about to open. Effie didn't want any more torture, suffering and torment, though subconsciously she realised she deserved it all. Raising the object just above her head, she prepared to strike.
The footsteps drew closer.
Shaking fingers gripped the cold metal harder. Effie searched for bravery, confidence, courage, but she was bloody well just a scared woman. There was nothing but fear. All time froze, centred on her pounding heartbeat, seemingly in time with her soft footsteps.
The doorknob turned slowly. Effie pressed her lips together, clutching her weapon to the point of pain.
But instead of the peacekeeper's face distorted with a mocking grimace, a tall, blonde-haired woman walked into the room, followed by Haymitch.
His face was startled. It wasn't that he had changed. It was just him.
His hands loosened, letting go of the scalpel, which met the tiled floor with only a soft clinking sound.
Her head spun round. The faces of the people standing with her at arm's length were barely recognisable, and it was as if the sound had disappeared altogether. An eerie, crushing silence and consciousness ready to leave again.
Effie takes a step back, refusing to believe it.
Wanting to scream, to cry, to claw at her hands, but to get rid of these hallucinations. This can't be happening. He can't be here.
- Hush, hush! - A calm voice breaks through the clouded mind. Effie feels warm hands on her back, just where the scars were left. She is gently picked up and carried back to the couch. The blonde-haired woman tries to fasten the necessary tubes back into her arms, but is met with desperate resistance and slurred sentences as if in a drunken delirium. Effie wanted to grab the woman's wrist, but her eyes were double-visioned and her hand was passing through the illusion she had created. Everything around her was an illusion, made to shut the girl out of reality. To make her insane and try to make her find enemies in her friends. And in the end to completely lose her mind and go insane.
Effie felt a familiar stabbing sensation in her arm. The girl assumed it was another hallucination-inducing drug, but no. After a minute, the fog in front of her eyes cleared and the girl could make out concerned faces looming over her.
- It's a dream. Just a dream. Unreal,’ her bloodied lips whispered rapidly, while her eyes darted around the room, searching for a glimpse of reality. The tears themselves ran, burning her cheeks. His body throbbed coarsely.
Haymitch cast a pleading look at the doctor, begging for some way to make it stop.
- Effie! - He hovered over her, holding her by the shoulders. - Stop it! It's OK. You're safe.
- No, no, no, no,’ Effie whispered, trying to push the illusion away from her.
- ‘Effie, Effie,’ Haymitch wouldn't let go of her shoulders and tried to catch her gaze. - Look at me, look at me.
Effie had stopped tossing from side to side, but a small shiver still pulsed. A convulsive sigh escaped from her mouth.
- You're safe, do you hear me? - Haymitch spoke soothingly. - We're real. You're safe.
- Haymitch? - There was still a hint of doubt in his voice.
Effie reached up to his face uncertainly. She touched his cheek, stroking it with the pads of her fingers.
- He is, sweetheart,’ the man let out a sigh of relief and closed his eyes slightly.
He hadn't heard from her or anyone else from the training team that had stayed in the Capitol for a month. Of course he was relieved, to the point of madness. It just pained Haymitch to imagine anything happening to this woman.
- Real,’ Effie whispered in a still trembling voice.
She carefully stood up, as if afraid to ruin such an ephemeral moment. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she hugged him tightly, clinging to him as tightly as her weakened body would allow.
Haymitch only wanted words of gratitude, but what Effie did now was beyond all honours. He felt her grip gradually weaken. Haymitch held her back with both arms around her.
- Mr Abernethy,’ came an ambiguous cough, ’you can't be out of the isolation ward for long.
How Haymitch wanted to send that nurse to hell right now, but now he had a woman in his arms whose life depended on him. She was too weak for him to leave her.