Peeta's POV

I get up and begin making my way to the toaster. The sun's already down by now and the only way I can see is by moonlight. I'm no hunter, so I don't know how the heck I'm supposed to catch food. I guess I'll just head into the toaster and put up with Haymitch's scolding.

I think about my recent insanity. I don't feel any more sane than I did before I got that Cinna plushie. Perhaps it's not connected to Katniss at all, although I'm still craving for that photo that Gale stole from me. When did I start going insane? I think back, and I remember. The insanity started when I thought about hugging Gale's helicopter at the top of one of the hills in the ashy field, by that stupid refrigerator.

Could it be connected to refrigerators somehow? I didn't see it yet at the time, but I think I must have sensed it. I traced back to try to remember any history between me and refrigerators... I remember one happening, many years ago when I was only seven.

"Peeta! Get the peanut butter out of the refrigerator!" My mom said. I was confused for a moment. Who puts peanut butter in a refrigerator? Regardless, my mom was strict and I had to get a move on. I yanked on the handle of the refrigerator door, but it wouldn't budge. I continued to yank on it until the refrigerator begin wobbling. Was that a good thing? It wasn't when the refrigerator fell on me and crushed me.

I was in the hospital for days. It turns out one of my brothers had superglued the door for some reason. From that point on, I was scared of refrigerators and had nervous breakdowns whenever I saw one. My mom had to move the refrigerator into the bathroom before I could ever make any more bread.

So that's my history with refrigerators. If I want to stop my fear and insanity from being near refrigerators, then I'll have to convince myself that refrigerators aren't all that bad. I suppose I'll figure that out tomorrow. I need some sleep first. Now I have to think about the matter with Haymitch. The only food we have is the fifteen extremely salty crackers, which I suppose would be edible. It would knock us out real good, but we're going to sleep anyways, so I don't think it matters.

I climb up to the top of the toaster and I look inside one of the slats. It's bright inside, so I guess Haymitch has the lights on in there. The fall is long. I bitterly put one leg over the edge. I don't want to do this. How did Haymitch get in there safely in the first place? Well, there's no point in agonizing over it. I brace myself and fall into the toaster.

The bottom is surprisingly cusiony. I feel soothed on impact, which is weird because normally I would be hurt. I examine my surroundings. Haymitch is sitting against the cusiony wall between the two slats. There are a bunch of dials to the far left. Behind me is a really hot red area. I guess that's the actual toastiness itself. I toss one of the salty crackers into there as a donation to the Gods. I watch the yellowish smoke drift up and out of the toaster. I can only hope they won't pass out when they try to get a whiff of it.

"So, bread boy," Haymitch says. "Did you find anything?" I shake my head and prepare for the scoldings. He looks angry for a bit, but he gets over it doesn't say anything more. He's really different when he's sober.

"I suppose we could have the rest of the salty crackers," I say. "There's fourteen left, so that means we can each have seven."

Haymitch scoffs. "Well, I don't have any better ideas! Toss me some! It's the closest thing to getting knocked out and drugged I can get!" I hand him seven crackers and we both eat them. Blackness overtakes my eyes before I know it.

-=+=-=+=- DAY 2 -=+=-=+=-

Peeta's POV

I rub my eyes. Daylight pours through the slats of the toaster. Haymitch is still sleeping... or still passed out. Whatever you consider having too many super salty crackers results in. I do feel well rested, however.

I head over to the left wall of the toaster and check out all the dials and buttons. I don't want to press them in case I accidentally fry us or something. But why would you place all the dials and such INSIDE the toaster instead of on the OUTSIDE? It's weird. Oh well, I guess you could say that whoever would build a giant toaster has little common sense anyways.

One button reads "EJECT". That must be that button that launches us out of here. Haymitch has to wake up, anyways. I press it. Two platforms burst up under the two slats, then retract back down. The platforms are too far away from these dials to be activated, so you would need two people to get one out. Once I'm out, I could use the switch on the outside to launch Haymitch out. I plan to tell him my plan for getting out of here. I guess he already knows, though, since he's the one who had the idea of camping out in here.

I sit down on the warm, cusiony floor by the toasting pit and watch the flames lick about. The words "Katniss, the girl who was on fire" play through my mind, but I push it away. I've lost her for good and Gale offers too much competition. I think about all the problems I need to solve today. Gale still has that photo of Katniss crying, so I need to track him down and get it back. I also need to fix my scrambled relationship with refrigerators. If we can fix everything, then we can begin devising a plan to get out of here and defeat Effie.

Why am I obsessed with finding pieces of Katniss when it's pretty much hopeless? I remember that I'm still massively in love with her and don't want to let her go. The Cinna plushie holds her voice and the photo of her crying holds her face. Speaking of that photo, why is Gale here? He doesn't necessarily have bad table manners. Did Effie bring him in to inconvenience me? Is he on Effie's side? More unanswered questions.

Haymitch yawns and stretches. "Come on, Haymitch! We've got a big, big, big day ahead of us!" I laugh. Haymitch just grunts and rises to his feet.

"I suppose you've found out the way out of here by now," he says. I nod. "Well, let's go, then. I'll press the eject button. You stand under one of the slats." I walk under one of the slats and brace myself as Haymitch presses the eject button. I'm blown sky-high out of the toaster. I look down and see the switch on the side of the toaster. Haymitch must be positioning himself for when I press that. I steer myself towards the button as the air rips against my face. I hit the switch with quite an impact. Ouch. I see Haymitch fly out of the toaster. I climb down and wait for him to land. He crashes into the top of the toaster and falls off the side. More ouch. I give him some of the first aid and we stand around for a while, unsure of what to do.

Haymitch breaks the silence. "Well, what should we do first?"

I say, "Gale has that photo of Katniss, and I'm driven insane by refrigerators."

Haymitch scowls. "For you, it's always 'Katniss this, Katniss that.' Don't expect me to help you find that photo." A small moment of silence occurs. "I could help you address that problem with your insanity," Haymitch says, snickering.

I shrug. "Alright. Let's do it." Haymitch takes the now empty bag of salty crackers and turns it inside out to form a puppet of a refrigerator. Haymitch has a mischievous grin on his face. Uh oh.

"Talk to the refrigerator and you can sort out your fears with it," Haymitch says, not really succeeding in obscuring his giggles.

"Well..." I say. "You should apologize for what you did to me before," I snarl at the refrigerator puppet. "You were SUPERGLUED!"

"Oh, I'm sorry. It's not my fault. Blame whoever did it. Your brother, probably," Haymitch says. All my fear of refrigerators disappears, because my family died in the bombing of District 12. That was easy. I wipe my eyes to get rid of whatever tears are trying to come out. I force a smile.

A panicked quack comes from behind me. The laser duck flies up and mantains a perch on a nearby tree. Ducks don't perch on trees. I guess it's really frightened. Buttercup the stupid talking mutant cat emerges from the bushes. "I'm hungry for DUCKS," Buttercup says. "And if you think I'm actually Buttercup, you're wrong. I'm actually a genetic mutt of Buttercup gotten from a random DNA thingy."

Haymitch pokes the mutt. Dead. The laser duck quacks victoriously. That was really random. I don't see how that helped with plot development whatsoever aside from removing an apparently useless character. Oh well. Why am I talking about literature now? This isn't a fanfiction.

"Welp," Haymitch says, shrugging. "You can go find that photo of your sweetheart. I'm going to go hunting for food." Haymitch walks off. I pull out the hairbrush and brush my hair. I'm going to crush Gale with style.

I look up to see a falling gift, so I catch it. I tear it open and find a nerf gun. This should be handing for raiding wherever Gale is.

I shoot a couple bullets out of the nerf gun to test it out. The bullets stop in mid-air and turn around to come back at me. Not good. This gun is purely made to kill me. I chuck the nerf gun at the bullets. They all destroy each other. Phew. I take a piece of the broken metal and I eat it. Lead flavored. Yuck.

I climb to the top of a tree and look about. I see Gale's helicopter navigating about the forest. Aha. It takes about an hour, but I eventually manage to get close to it's course. I shoot my grappling hook at it and pull myself up into the helicopter. No surprises such as a last name to stop me this time.

Gale's operating the wheel. He turns his head and catches my eye. "This is my copter," he says. "Get off. Now." I stand my ground. I notice the photo of Katniss crying, laying on a small table to the right of Gale. My heart leaps. It's what I came here for. I advance slowly. Gale continues to watch me. I get real close to him and the photo when he raises his fist to punch me hard in the temple. Just before he can beat me up, the weirdest thing happens.

The photo is ringing. Both my and Gale's jaws drop. "It's an alarm clock too?" I ask. "Well, that's really dandy." Gale picks up the alarm clock photo whatchamajig. He shakes it.

"Where's the off button to this thing?" He says, beginning to get slightly annoying. The photo begins to become distorted. He raises an eyebrow. The photo falls off into tiny smitherines to reveal lots of wiring. Gale recoils. Is Gale to wire as I am to refrigerators?

"This... is no photo," Gale says. "IT'S A HYDROGEN BOMB IN DISGUISE!" Gale flies the helicopter above the charred black field and drops me and the bomb off. I land in the mud by the smashed-up refrigerator. Great, now I need another bath. The bomb lands right beside me.

There's only seconds left before it explodes.

Nerf Gun from UNDERLANDERfromtheOVERLAND