It only made sense that Veruca's trauma from the factory would have been psychological and not physical, for her elimination was easily the most disturbing of them all. While Mike and Violet's actions directly resulted in the tragedy that got them eliminated, the punishment they each endured was rather quick. And while Augustus' punishment took a bit longer to fully manifest, his elimination truly was an accident. Wonka told everyone that everything in the chocolate room was edible, so it was inevitable that someone would fall into the ungated chocolate river attempting to savor the lifeblood of the factory. Veruca's punishment on the other hand was the one that truly haunted Charlie, even after all these years. He remembered watching from the balcony above as Veruca walked down the flight of stairs and creeped towards the squirrels until, all of a sudden, they attacked her for invading their space. And if getting attacked by a swarm of large rodents wasn't bad enough, having them climb on top of and all around you and toss you down a garbage chute would surely cause a few nightmares, at least. Those few minutes, which felt more like hours to Charlie when it happened, had changed Veruca's life, as was clear from how she spoke about her father and her relationship with him for example. The Good Boy even hypothesized that the ordeal in the Nut Sorting Room had done something to Veruca's outlook on life, something he could see now that they had met up after so many years. There was fear behind those fiery blue eyes of hers and Charlie guessed alcohol was just the way she dealt with that fear as an adult.

As Charlie returned to his Areoscoot, he noticed the core of the apple he had ate for breakfast was still in the slot he left it in, now all brown after having been exposed to the elements without its skin. Seeing as he was next to one of the largest openings to the incinerator in the entire factory, Charlie picked up the apple core from its stem, walked over to the blue gate separating the balcony from the rest of the Nut Sorting Room, and chucked it down to the floor. While Charlie was by far one of the least talented pitchers in the world, Wonka's genius room design came in handy when the brown apple core landed on the blue-and-white swirled floor, yet at quite the distance from the chute opening, but then began to slide down the slanted floor all the way to the middle of the room where the core fell down the garbage chute just like all the bad nuts before it. With his garbage disposed of, Charlie was ready to head back to the office and get back to work, but before he could set foot on his Areoscoot, a disturbing noise emanating from down below caught his attention. Charlie walked over to the edge of the balcony and peered his head over the railing to get a better look at the Nut Sorting Room and to better hear the noises coming from inside it. While the squirrels toiled away, inspecting nuts for their quality, an unexplained noise echoed from the depths of the garbage chute. As time went on, what were once faint groans grew into distinct moans of pain, and then those moans grew into full-on words.

"Help! Save me!" A frightened child's voice cried out from beyond the opening of the chute, causing Charlie to shake his head as he hoped someone else had not fallen down the chute.

Following his head shaking, Charlie stopped hearing noises from the chute, but when he spotted an Oompa Loompa dressed in Nut Sorting Room yellow down below, he called out to him, and asked, "Did you hear that? Those screams, coming from the rubbish chute."

The Oompa Loompa took a quick glance at the chute, then gave Charlie a confused look and shook his head; he had heard nothing while he was down on the room floor doing maintenance work on the equipment. This really startled Charlie as it was not normal to hear a child's scream out of nowhere, not even in Wonka's wacky factory, and the only explanation he could come up with was that perhaps he inhaled one too many fumes in the Inventing Room. With the Oompa Loompa informing Charlie that he heard nothing, Charlie could only conclude the scream was all in his head, perhaps caused by something chemical in the factory or perhaps due to a lack of proper sleep the night before. Either way, Charlie had to shelve that odd experience away in the back of his mind and get back to the office in order to attend to his other duties. The rest of the day was business as usual, Charlie briefed Wonka on employee grievances, they read reports written by the Oompa Loompas from different rooms detailing the progress on the trials of their latest invention and they spitballed ideas for new candies. The day passed by like every other day in Charlie's life for the past couple of years, at this point it was almost monotonous, but at least he had a homecooked meal waiting for him every night to put a smile on his face.

Family dinners were a feast, or at least they appeared to be a feast in Charlie's mind, considering he grew up believing an extra loaf of bread was nothing short of a gift from God. Charlie's mother was a homemaker, she always stayed home to cook, clean and take care of Charlie's grandparents while Charlie's father ventured out of the factory every day to his job as a robotics technician at the Smilex Toothpaste factory down the road. Ever since Charlie became Wonka's heir, the family never again had to worry about food or money, the only reason Mr. Bucket did not quit his job was because he thought he would get bored spending all day at home. At the same time, Mrs. Bucket could now cook whatever she desired thanks to the massive indoor gardens, fields and ponds that raised all the food that Wonka and the Oompa Loompas ate, but she occasionally still made cabbage soup, mostly as a gag but also as an homage to the difficult times the family went through. Fortunately, the only real change in their appearance from when they first entered the factory to now was that they were a bit grayer now, but surely no longer having to worry about whether there would be food on table did wonders for their health and kept the worst effects of stress-related aging at bay.

Things had never been better for the Bucket family, except for the fact that their tiny shack was much emptier now. A few years after moving into the factory, Charlie's beloved grandfather, Grandpa Joe passed away, followed by his wife, Grandma Josephine a few years later, and after that his other grandfather, the ever-pessimistic, straight-shooting, no-nonsense and unfiltered Grandpa George, also joined his fellow bedmates two years after that. Fourteen years after they had moved into the factory, it was just the senile-but-sweet Grandma Georgina that remained of Charlie's grandparents. Charlie knew she would not be around for much longer, and while he could prolong her life, he knew she shouldn't have to live forever for his own sake, so he made sure to treasure the time he still had with her. Despite the loss of loved ones he suffered through, Charlie did gain a new family member as a result of him and his family moving into the factory. Since Wonka's only family was his aging father, Charlie agreed to move into his factory if Wonka agreed to become an honorary Bucket, something he eagerly accepted. It was Wonka who had the Bucket's old shack transplanted from the edge of town to the inside the Chocolate Room and he joined Charlie for family dinners every night. And now, with a couple of empty chairs lining the table following the passing of many of his grandparents, Charlie often daydreamed of one day filling those seats with new people. One day, Charlie would bring someone over for dinner and then her parents another day, filling up the three empty chairs, and of course, getting an opportunity to see the faces of all those people when they realized that the heir to the Wonka empire willingly lived in a rundown shack.

That night's dinner was excellent as always and the night was still young, but instead of chatting with Wonka and the others after the meal, he excused himself from the dinner table, climbed up a rickety latter to his room and went to bed early as he was so exhausted following a day of work on insufficient sleep from the night prior. His bedroom had not changed much from when he was a kid, Charlie had replaced his old cot with an actual bed frame and put in a single-sized mattress and a new pillow underneath a corner of the attic with a hole in the roof he made after his parents had patched up the hole that used to be over his bed following Charlie initially refusing to move into Wonka's factory and them needing to repair the damage the Great Glass Elevator had caused to their shack when the amazing chocolatier brought Charlie and Grandpa Joe home after the tour. Through this hole, he had a good view of a corner of the now-unilluminated chocolate room and all the magnificent sweets that grew there. And even though he now had enough money of his own to repair the existing house, expand on it, and build a new one altogether over and over again, Charlie promised himself that he would never do anything that would compromise the originality of the structure. This old, rundown shack was his childhood home, and despite undergoing many hardships here, he had so many good memories associated with it as well, and he would not forsake all of that just because he had all the money in the world now. And while he very much enjoyed Veruca's spacious and luxurious bed for a change, Charlie slept much more comfortably knowing he did not have a bed partner who could asphyxiate on their own vomit at any moment. And like every other night, Charlie was lulled to sleep by the sound of melted chocolate cascading down the chocolate waterfall and the scent of candies all around were the perfect catalyst for sweet dreams.

That was, until now...