"In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost."

- Dante Alighieri


There were no oars or engines in the boat, but that didn't somehow stop it from moving anyway. The moment we'd all sat down in it, it began to slowly move forward in the chocolate river. I looked over to the side to try and see how it was moving, but it was impossible to tell.

"This thing looks ready to keel over – how the hell are we moving?" Mike asked, and Mr. Wonka stretched his arms over his head and looked quite pleased with himself.

"Impressed?" he asked, smiling enigmatically.

"More like confused…" Mike responded, a frown on his face. Mr. Wonka raised a single index finger in the air and waved it at him.

"Now, now. Can't expect to give away all my secrets now, can we?"

As the boat followed the river, there was a big grassy knoll in the distance that got ever closer. There seemed to be some sort of tunnel inside it, where the river continued to flow. It was completely dark in said tunnel, and it made me nervous.

But the moment the boat entered it, there was a strange sound of something scuttling around – and then the walls inside of the tunnel were visible – only thanks to the fluorescent lights of what appeared to be large bugs, crawling around all over the walls.

But upon a second look, I realized that the bugs were not real – they were machines. Their backs lit up as we passed, like fireflies. Their metal shells were glowing iridescent.

Everyone in the boat except Wonka were rendered speechless by this sight. He stuck out a finger and one of the bugs flew and sat down on his finger, chirping as it did.

"What on earth are those?" Veruca asked, looking thoroughly repulsed. Mr. Wonka petted the bug on his finger idly as he answered her.

"Like them? I call them the OL-600 – I engineered them myself. Makes work around the factory so much easier, you see. They keep unwanted pests at bay, and make sure the factory is always clean and maintained."

I stuck out my hand towards it, and it hopped from Wonka's finger to mine. It nuzzled against my hand and chirped – it sounded like a broken watch, but a happy one at that. I smiled down at it – it was kind of cute.

"Do they make the chocolate too?" I asked, and the bug raised its head suddenly – something must have caught its attention. It flew away into the darkness of the tunnel, as Wonka stared after it – an unexpectedly solemn look on his face now.

"Ah, no. They have their limitations, I'm afraid. "

"So who makes the chocolate then? "

"You'll see soon enough."


We continued on through the tunnel – which was opening up and becoming almost cavernous. We found ourselves in a sort of clearing with many other tunnels around us – and the boat swiftly entered the one labeled MANUFACTURING HALL.

Mr. Wonka gripped the side of the boat suddenly, bracing himself.

"Might want to hold onto something." he said, his eyes glittering with excitement.

"Why would we want to - "

Without warning, the boat canted violently forward – and we headed down a tunnel that pointed straight down. Veruca screamed at the top of her lungs, while the rest of us did as Wonka had said. The drop was a big one, and we landed in complete darkness, the boat making a big splash as it did.

Then his voice rang out triumphantly in the dark.

"Ah look – we're here!"

"Where? We can't see anything in here." Mike complained.

And indeed, it was pitch black. But still, I could have sworn that I saw a pair of eyes – not glowing exactly, but reflective, like that of a cats in the dark. They saw me and blinked once, then went away.

Had they been Mr. Wonka's eyes?

"Oh yes – how silly of me. " he said, clapped his hands twice and immediately the room around us lit up. We all had to close our eyes at the suddenness of it, to slowly open them and find ourselves in another cavernous room.

The boat had docked against the base of a large statue made entirely out of chocolate – I realized that it was an exact copy of Michelangelo's David.

All around us, small figures moved around and at first I thought they were regular people. But they were robots – made to look like humans. But instead of being human-sized, they were no bigger than a shoebox in height. They had no human-like skin, but very real-looking eyes that appeared to look everywhere and nowhere at once.

This room as a whole looked like what I'd thought the inside of a chocolate factory would look like – everywhere you looked, there were chocolate bars and candy bars being packaged up, melted, and shaped. The big difference was the workers themselves.

I looked over at – who looked so proud he was ready to burst. He stepped out of the boat with a spring in his step and motioned us to follow him.

"Come see! Come see! Aren't they wonderful? Aren't they glorious?" he asked us, as we all went up a couple of stairs to a sort of overseeing platform. From there it was possible to get a good overview of the entire room – which was at least as big as two football stadiums put together. It was massive – I wondered why I'd never noticed just how big the factory was from the outside.

"What are they?" Violet asked, pointing at the small, human-like robots. Mr. Wonka drummed his fingers against the railing that surrounded the platform, humming happily.

"Very efficient aren't they? Look how fast and meticulous they work. "

"Did you make them too? " I asked and Wonka tilted his head at me, his gaze considering.

"Yes. I had to – couldn't trust real people anymore, you see. They stole things – big things. But these would never betray me – they can't, its in their programming not to. Besides which, they don't cost a penny to maintain."

"Is that why you closed the factory to visitors? Because things were stolen?" Veruca asked, and Mr. Wonka went very quiet.

A nearby robot stopped in its tracks and looked up at him – as if sensing something. Mr. Wonka saw it and quickly snapped his fingers, making the robot go back to what it was doing.