(Matilda's POV):

I shut my eyes even tighter and I brace myself for the impact, but it never comes. Instead I hear two somethings deploy and the log begins to slow down. Cautiously I open my eyes and my heartbeat begins to decrease when I see that the log has deployed two separate parachutes as we near the bottom.

We land with a small plop and float over to the edge of the log ride. The log behind us has also deployed two parachutes. As soon as I step out of the log, I quickly notice how cold it's become and I realize we must be really far down in Wonka's factory.

"Well, that happened," Billie gasps.

"Yeah," I agree shakily.
"Now let's get out of here."

I see a round vault-like door open just up ahead. Running towards it, I look around to make sure that no oompa loompas are there.

"Looks like the coast is clear," I say in relief.

Sneaking on out, we begin to wind down a spiral staircase until I hear some commotion coming from one of the rooms. I skid to a halt.

"Did you all hear that?" I whisper.

I listen again and soon I hear a sort of stretching sound coming from inside of the room and some pained groaning. Cautiously I look through the window to make sure there aren't any oompa loompas in that room. Thankfully there aren't. But just in case, I try to be as quiet as I can opening the door. I head over to find a boy who looks to be tinier than he probably should be, but seems to be rapidly stretching. He's strapped to some sort of machine reminiscent of a medieval stretching device.

"Hey," he says, sort of chill, but I can tell that there is some panic in his voice.
"Can you, like, get me out of here please? My abdomen is starting to stretch too far."

Quickly I look around to see if I can find some sort of control panel or something to make this stop. If I know Wonka, if we're not able to stop this in time, it won't end well for this guy.

"Matilda," Veruca whispers.
"Look."

She points to a little box on the side of the machine.

"That's a power box," I say confused.
"What about it?"

But then I take a closer look and notice that there's a portion of the metal covering that's bent to reveal a small hole. And inside are a bunch of colored wires. I call over to the squirrels. They each try to fit themselves in the hole, but without success.

"Try pulling it back a bit more," Alfie suggests.
"Applying a pulling force should create a hole that one of us should be able to fit into and shut the system down via cutting and biting the wires inside and/or causing some type of circuitry malfunction."

I take my hand and grab onto the exposed piece. With some persistence, I hear a low creak coming from the metal as I pull it back to reveal sparks of electricity. Immediately my heart begins to palpitate.

"Let me handle this," Alfie volunteers, which shocks quite a few of us, no pun intended.
"I've done electrical grid simulations many times."

"But this isn't a simu-thingy," Billie remarks confused.
"This is real."

"No," Alfie sighs out of frustration.
"But a simulation nearly mimics how something might be done in real life. I've had to cut apart several wires that were parts of various kinds of grids for multiple projects. I once even had to reassemble a computer grid for an electronics competition. It came all the way from a small village in Norway, meaning the instructions were all in Norwegian."

"How did you figure it out?" Dani asks, intrigued.

"Well, once I figured out the basic structures of the Norwegian language as well as exceptions to each rule of the conjugations and grammar, it was pretty smooth sailing. Ended up taking second place. It seems I mistranslated a small portion so two of my wires ended up being swapped with one another. Not my proudest moment, I'll admit."

"One time, I was running late and I swapped in my black mascara for red mascara," Billie pipes up.
"Everyone called me siren eyes for the rest of the year."

"Not the same thing, but we'll talk about that later," Alfie sighs.

He scurries over and latches onto the side.

"Are you sure you're up for this?" I ask him out of concern as he climbs up the box.
"It looks dangerous."

"If it means this kid gets to live, then yes. Plus, scientifically, my squirrel teeth should be able to safely chew through these wires. Even if what I've read about in all seven volumes of Animalia Anatomis proves false, and I suffer fatal injuries-"

All of a sudden, I hear the jiggling of a doorknob and my heart jumps.

"Hurry!" I whisper harshly to him.

Just as he sneaks into the hole, the door bursts open and in enter four oompa loompas all wearing white jumpsuits. One of them is holding a remote control.

"Well, well, well," the one with the remote says menacingly.
"Looks like we got ourselves a couple of troublemakers. Poor Mikey will have to suffer for that."

He presses a white button and I hear something whirring at top speed. The boy, who I assume is named Mike or Mikey or something, winces in pain as his body begins to stretch even more. Meanwhile I begin to hear squeaks of pain coming from the wire box and my heart is now racing.

"Oh, do you hear that?" the second one gasps.
"It sounds like we might have a nice, roasted squirrel to eat for dinner tonight."

"More like rotten," the third oozes with malice.
"As they were not a good, little squirrel who stayed in the nut room like they are supposed to. But they'll be nice and delicious with a side of barbecue sauce."

The group of oompa loompas cackle sadistically and my face turns absolutely white. I knew the oompa loompas were willing to kill these kids for candy, but they're willing to kill the squirrel children as well?

"Shut it down!" I scream in fury.
"Can't you hear how much pain they're both in?"

They stop laughing and stare at me as if I'm some sort of museum attraction or zoo animal or some sort of extra terrestrial.

"Well," the fourth considers very slowly.
"We could let them go. If you come with us."

All of a sudden, their eyes suddenly roll into the backs of their skulls in sync. Their mouths slowly open, dropping the jaws just a bit further down than normal. And seemingly from out of nowhere, I hear four demonic voices chorus

"Come back to us, Matilda. With your ingenuity, creativity, and innocence, you and the master shall achieve absolute world domination; the world shall bow at your feet and marvel at your creativity. If you don't, drastic measures shall be taken."

The last sentence seems to have each word extended.

Well, I'm definitely going to have nightmares for the next ten years now, I think shivering.

All of a sudden, I hear the whirring power down and a scurry of little feet. Turning around I find that Alfie has managed to make it out alive, with little physical damage it would seem. On top of that, the machine Mike is strapped into has stopped stretching him.

"You okay?" I ask both Alfie and Mike.

"Yeah," they both say.

Immediately the other squirrels begin to climb up the machine and gnaw at Mike's chains. Meanwhile, Augustus, Violet, Veruca, and Uncle Nigel deal with the four oompa loompas.

We manage to beat them down and by the time we have them restrained, mostly thanks to Augustus, Mike has been freed.

"Thanks, dudes," he says.
"Name's Mike. Mike Teavee."

I go through everyone else and we shake hands.

"So what are you doing here, Matilda?" he asks.

"Long story short, we need to find an antidote to change these guys," I explain, gesturing to the squirrels.
"Back to normal. As well as keep Wonka from making me his daughter and achieving world domination."

"World domination? That doesn't sound good. Can I give you a hand? After all, it seems like Wonka nearly tried to kill me."

"Ve're in das same boat, mein Freud," Augustus assures him, gesturing to him, Violet, Veruca, and Uncle Nigel.
"All of us nearly met our dooms thanks to Vonka."

"So does that mean you'll let me join your party?" he asks.

I look at him a bit confused.

"It's video game terminology. Can I join you?"

"Oh," I exclaim.
"I don't really play video games, but yeah, you can join us."

"Sweet. Where to next?"

I consider my options, which to be honest, is really anywhere, as we don't have much of a clue as to how far down this factory even goes.

"I guess downwards to find his lab."

"And how exactly do we get there?" he asks as we walk towards the door.

"Honestly, I don't know, but what do we have to lose by taking random directions?"

Probably a lot, I think.
But what other choice do you have?