A/N: What's this? A new AU? And it's horror?
Please Stop, You're Scaring Me
-MT-
Mike Teavee honestly doesn't know how Violet Beauregarde managed to talk him into this.
The two of them, along with friends Veruca Salt and Augustus Gloop, stand outside the large metal gates of Wonka Laboratory on Halloween night. Violet had led them to the gigantic building after Trick-or-Treating, and she still hadn't explained why she did it nor what they were there for. So far, they had just been staring at the building in silen-
"Ugh, Violet! We have been staring at this building for, like, a full hour! What are we even doing here?!"
So much for silence.
Violet wrinkled her nose at Veruca's mini tantrum.
"Well, if you'd just wait, maybe I'll fill you in," she snarked, ignoring the British girl's enraged shrieks. "We're here on a dare."
"A dare?" Mike feels that Veruca's tantrum is justified now. "You brought us here for a dare?!"
"Are you really surprised, Teavee?" Violet asked. Mike finds that, in all honesty, he really isn't.
"Wot ish da dare?" Augustus asked around a mouthful of chocolate.
Violet turned back to the building.
"A night spent in Wonka Labs," she explained. "No leaving 'til morning."
They all looked at her sceptically.
"You're going to stay in a weird laboratory until morning?" Veruca asked, wrinkling her nose in distaste.
"Nope." Violet smirked. "We all are."
A string of protests rang up, as Veruca whined at and Augustus pleaded with Violet, both of them try to convince her to reconsider. Mike rolled his eyes, staying silent. There was no point in trying to argue against her, as Violet had already set her mind to it. It was the Beauregarde Way; resistance was futile.
"Come on, ya bunch of wusses!" Violet shouted over the two foreigners. "We gotta dare to break!"
She lead the way to the large metal gates. Augustus and Veruca(who was still whining) followed her like two puppies. Mike gave a soul-suffering sigh, but decided to bring up the rear anyway. Who knows? Maybe this would end up being one of Violet's better ideas.
Famous last words.
Mike walked up to see Violet vigorously shaking the metal bars of the gate. After a few more shakes, she let go with a groan.
"Locked," Violet grumbled angrily.
"Oh, well, looks like we're not getting in," Veruca said, unapologetically. "Guess we gotta go back."
Veruca turned to leave, but Violet grabbed her by the elbow, nearly smudging the painted on lines of the stitched ballerina doll costume she had chosen.
"Hold on, there is another way," Violet said, looking upward. Mike followed her eyes and saw that she was looking at…
The very top of the gate.
Veruca and Augustus seemed to catch on as well, because they both turned to Violet with panicked expressions.
"No!" Veruca shouted. "No, no, absolutely not!"
"Um, Violet?" Augustus said softly. "There is no possible way you could get me up there, please do not make me."
Violet rolled her eyes before backpedalling and running towards the gate. She jumps, latching onto the gate directly in the middle. She pulled herself up until she was at the top. Then, she jumped down into a crouch on the ground with a soft grunt of pain. After a full minute, she popped up.
"See, easy," Violet boasted with a pained smirk. She gave each of them a look. "Come on, chickens. You can make it."
To Mike's utter shock and surprise, Veruca actually decided to take Violet up on her offer. She began scaling the metal gate, a feat Mike thought would surely be impossible for someone in ballet flats. It didn't take Veruca long to reach to reach the top of the gate, and, once she was there, she sent a worried look to Violet.
"Now, how am I going to get down?" Veruca asked.
Violet said nothing, and wordlessly held out her hands.
Veruca's eyes nearly leapt from their sockets. "Surely you don't expect to jump all the way down there!" she shrieked.
Violet raised an eyebrow. Veruca's face pinched, and for a moment, Mike thought she was going to start crying. However, she seemed to suck it up, and leapt from the top of the gate directly into Violet's waiting arms with a small "oomphf". Violet then wrapped her arms around Veruca's waist and set her down on her feet.
"Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Violet asked sarcastically. Veruca answered in the form of an angry hair toss. She scoffed and turned towards the factory. Violet rolled her eyes and turned back to the boys.
"Alright, who's next?" She looked at Augustus and Mike with a wide smirk.
Mike turned to Augustus, fully intent on trying to talk him out of it, but Augustus took a breath and grabbed the bars of the gate, pulling himself up them as if he was King Kong climbing a tall skyscraper. Augustus reached the top of the gate and jumped down, landing in a crouch that Violet had to help him out of.
Once Violet had Augustus situated, she turned to Mike with a smug expression.
"Alright, Teavee, your turn."
Mike rolled his eyes with a scoff.
"There's no way you're getting me up there, Beauregarde."
Violet smirked for probably the umpteenth time that day. Mike really wished she would stop doing it.
"Oh, really?" Violet purred smugly. "Not even for this?"
Violet pulled a purple rectangular shape from her pocket and Mike almost had an entire fit. It was a piece of Laffy Taffy, the only candy he could eat without literally dying and the only one of its kind that he had received that night.
"Di-did you steal that from my bag?!" Mike knew it was incredibly stupid to be this furious over a piece of candy, but he just wanted to have a good time with friends and eat candy that he could actually stomach.
He never wanted this.
"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't," Violet said, slipping the candy back into the pocket of the hoodie she wore over her vampire duchess costume. "The question is: how bad do you really want it?"
Thus marked the day Mike Teavee sold his soul for a piece of candy.
Mike adjusted the foil linings of his robot costume, took a deep breath, and began to scale the large gate. It took him a while, and he almost slipped a few times, but he managed to reach the top. Once he was there, Violet held her arms out in invitation.
"You can't be serious," Mike said with barely concealed worry.
"If I wasn't completely serious about this, I wouldn't be down here with your stupid candy in my pocket, now would I?" Violet asked.
Mike didn't answer. He closed his eyes, took another deep breath, and jumped…
Right into Violet's waiting arms.
"See? Nothing bad happened," Violet said as she set Mike down by his waist. She tossed him his coveted piece of candy and walked towards the laboratory entrance where the others were waiting. Mike ate it quickly and reluctantly followed.
When he got there, Violet was getting the patent pended 'Veruca Salt Glare', which was rather ineffective since Violet has been subjected to worse glares.
"The doors are locked, Violet," Veruca said in a dangerous tone. "Your plan is officially ruined, and we're stuck."
"Chill out, Vee," Violet said. "I planned for this." She fished a bobby pin out of her pocket and dangled in front of Mike's face.
"What are you doing that for?" Mike asked, as if that wasn't obvious.
Violet narrowed her eyes at him. "I know you know how to pick locks." She dropped the hair accessory into his outstretched hand. Mike furrowed his eyebrows at it, then walked up the steps and towards the locked doors of the laboratory. He stuck the pin in the slot and got to work.
He had the lock open in a matter of seconds.
"Nice going, Teavee!" Violet exclaimed, striking a fist into his back triumphantly.
"It was no big deal," Mike replied once he regained his breath.
Violet led their group into the laboratory. Mike, who would be lying if he said he wasn't a little bit curious, followed. Veruca and Augustus brought up the rear.
Wonka's laboratory, which was very darkly colored on the outside, was just as darkly colored on the inside. Their small group stood in a hallway filled with many different diplomas and awards.
"Whoa, look at all this stuff," Violet whispered.
"I never knew he was this successful," Veruca said in awe.
They all stared at the walls in wonder and awe. Suddenly, a thought came to Mike's head.
"Um, where exactly are we gonna stay?" he asked Violet. The other two looked at her expectantly.
"Um…" For the first time that night, Violet Beauregarde was struck speechless.
"Violet, oh my God." Mike has never seen anyone glare at other person as hard as Veruca was glaring at Violet right now.
"Look, we'll just have to find somewhere to stay for the night, and then sneak out in the morning," Violet told them as she led their group down the hall. There was another locked door at the end of the hall, and Mike had it open quicker than the one outside.
The room they were in now looked more lab-like. There were counters lined in columns in the middle of the room, and shelves upon shelves filled with beakers which were filled with colored liquids.
"Now this is more like it," Mike said in a hushed tone. He stared at the shelves in curiosity. He wondered what sort of substances the beakers held. Maybe they were cures for terminal illnesses.
"Yeah, this stuff is pretty cool," Violet agreed as she stood with Mike.
"Okay, but it's still not a place to sleep," Veruca complained. "Violet, I swear, if we don't find a place right now-"
Mike never found out what Veruca was going to do, because at that moment, a bunch of liquid splashed onto them.
"What the hell, Augustus?!" Violet shouted angrily. Mike turned to say something, maybe a biting remark about how clumsy Augustus was, but stopped when he caught sight of his friend.
Augustus Gloop looked, well, gloopy. He seemed to be sweating off his skin, which seemed to be turning darker by the second.
"Friends." His voice was sluggish, yet urgent. "What is happening to me?"
Mike and the girls were speechless. They had never seen anything like this. Their friend seemed to be melting right before their eyes! And not only that, his skin was turning into chocolate!
As they stood there helplessly, trying to think of something to do, Mike noticed a puddle of green liquid near Augustus's rapidly melting chocolate shoes. It was the same color of liquid that splashed onto them.
Mike turned to Violet.
"Violet, Veruca, I think I know what's happening!"
Violet and Veruca turned to him with panicked expressions.
"I think the liquid is what's causi-"
Mike cut himself off with a stricken expression. As he had begun to explain his theory, the skin of Veruca's right arm began to thin at the painted seam of her elbow.
Veruca regarded Mike's expression with fear.
"What is it? What's wrong-"
Veruca cut herself off with a shriek as her right arm detached itself from her elbow. It fell limply to the ground at Violet's feet, and she gave a short yelp of fear.
However, that was nothing compared to the pained shrieks and fearful wails that were emanating from Veruca Salt.
"My arm!" she sobbed loudly. "My poor arm! It just-it just-"
She was cut off by a loud gurgling noise, like a balloon being filled with water. The loud gurgling sound that had come from right in between herself and Mike.
Mike was almost afraid to look, afraid to see the horrible truth, but he turned to his left anyway.
He wished he hadn't.
Violet Beauregarde stared at her now blue-violet complexion in shocked silence. Every inch of her was blue, from her once blonde locks of hair to her blueish-black sneakers. But that wasn't the worst part, nor the source of the gurgling.
Both of those were Violet's rapidly expanding stomach.
It was then that Mike realized that he had never heard nor seen Violet show genuine fear. It was also then that he realized he could've gone without seeing such a thing.
The more Violet's stomach expanding, the more panic-stricken she became. Her now-blueberry blue eyes overflowed with tears as she began to hyperventilate loudly and horribly. These sounds mixed in with Veruca's loud shrieks and grotesque sobs as her left leg detached itself from underneath her skirt, and her left arm began to follow the same route as her right.
However, none of these sounds were loud enough to drown out what Mike still believed to this day was the worst sound he'd ever heard in his life.
The rubbery sound of his own arm grotesquely stretching away from his body.
Mike screamed in agony as his now-horribly long limb fell to the ground in front of the melted, chocolately puddle that Augustus was still in the process of becoming. Tears sprang to his eyes as his fingers extended painfully.
The room filled with the sounds of panicked crying and screaming. Augustus's shoulders were beginning to sink into the puddle, and his face was melting in horrifying ways. Veruca's left arm had long since detached, and her left leg was quick to follow. She was now left with only her torso and her head, the latter of which didn't seem to keen on sticking around. Violet's entire body was rapidly expanding into what Mike's rattled brain was sure was a blueberry. His left leg had gone the same as his right arm, and his right leg seemed to be following in its footsteps.
"Mike."
Mike craned his neck in an attempt to meet Violet's eyes, but her body was so huge he couldn't seem to find it.
"Yeah?" He winced at his strained, raspy voice.
"Do you think we're being punished? Like by God or something?"
Mike's eyes widened. His left arm stretched. His brain set to work.
Were they being punished for something? Mike didn't quite know what. They were just kids, not even thirteen! And now they were dying, and for what? Because Violet was too competitive? Because Veruca complained almost the entire time? Because Augustus was too busy stuffing his mouth to act as the eldest? Because he was desperate and snide?
It was silent.
Augustus had finished melting into a large puddle of chocolate Gloop.
Veruca's shrieks were silenced when her head fell off.
Violet emanated a fruity smell that filled the room, and herself.
Mike laid on the floor as his head was dragged back by his rapidly stretching neck. He closed his eyes. They opened a second later.
Did he tell his parents he loved them before he left?
No.
He closed his eyes in defeat, and welcomed the darkness.
Come with me, and you'll be, in a world of pure imagination.
No more screams, just your dreams, leave it all in your imagination...
I've never written actual horror before, so I'm pretty sure this will be very underwhelming.
Reviews are welcome!