It's too cold. Why did it have to be so cold?'

I looked down at my son, whose eyes were glued to the front doors of the factory, as he clutched the golden ticket in his gloved hands. His cheeks were red from the cold, and I could feel the excitement rolling off of him. Shuttering, I pull my jacket closer to my body, wishing that we had left one day sooner. If we did, he never would have grabbed that Wonka Bar off the shelf at that gas station. He never would have found that golden ticket, and we would be on a plane back home. Now, we won't be getting back until tomorrow afternoon at best.

This was supposed to just be a simple vacation. Visit my parents in London for a week, then head home. It was late February, and this was the only time we could have made this trip work with my schedule. The only downside really is that Danny is missing a week of school, but his teachers had given him a packet of work to complete for credit, and that was finished on the plane ride here.

I glanced at the surrounding parents, and I felt uneasy looking at them. One of the dads looked middle aged, and he wore the same clothes as my father. His brownish blond hair was receding, and his glasses were large enough to land a helicopter on it. The child next to him looked the exact opposite. His dark hair was wild, and he looked as if he would rather be anywhere else but here. And if memory serves by the interview, when I watched on tv about this whole golden ticket fiasco, he did it just because he could.

Next to them was a mother daughter team wearing blue track suits and silver jackets. I don't know why they insisted on looking identical. It was beyond weird, and the fact that the only difference between them was their height.

Then there was a father with his daughter, and just by looking at them, she was clearly spoiled. He wore a freshly pressed suit, and she wore clothes with name brands I had a hard time pronouncing. Just by looking at her I could tell she was never told 'no' in her life, which was a common word in my household.

Then there was a boy who I've seen scarf down at least three candy bars in the ten minutes we had been standing here. Chocolate smeared on his face, and his mother looked down at him with a proud look on her face.

Lastly, there was a small, scrawny looking boy who stood next to who I assumed to be the grandfather. His clothes looked worn and but comfortable, and the suit his grandpa wore had seen better days. If one strong just of wind blew through, they both would have fallen over.

"Mom," Danny said to me as he reached out and gave my hand a squeeze. "Are you okay?" I nodded.

"I'm good. Just a little...worried."

"Why?" he asked me with a confused look on his face.

"Listen baby," I say as I crouch down next to him. "I just don't want anything bad to happen while we are in there, alright? I want you to follow the rules, and anything strange happens we are heading home."

"What do you mean 'strange'," he asks. "Because he's British?"

I chuckled. "No, it not that. I just have a bad feeling about this place. I mean, look at it."

Before we came to this place, I did some research about this place. Apparently, this Wonka guy opened a small shop a few blocks from here. The demand for his candies was so great he had opened a factory to supply the demand for his goodies. However, he closed the factory out of the blue due to people stealing his recipes and selling it to his competitors. The once white and prestige factory was now blackened with years of neglect, and there was no amount of cleaning that would bring back the shine.

"Yeah, this place definitely looks haunted," he said in awe as he looked over the building. "Do you think we'll see a ghost?"

"Probably," I say as I glace down at my phone just as the clock reads ten o'clock, the time the tour was about to start.

"Open the gates," a voice boomed across multiple intercoms, which caused me to jump a little due to being startled. The gates creaked loudly as they slowly opened just as the voice boomed once more. "Come forward."

I grabbed Danny's hand as we both stepped through the snow-covered walkway. There was no turning back now as we crossed the threshold. My heart beats rapidly in my chest, and I glanced back to the crowd of people watching us.

"Close the gates," the voice boomed once more, and I felt as if I were leaving one world and entering another, and something told me I should turn back now and run. But the clinging of the metal gate closing told me I was trapped.

"How many red flags should we give this place before I say nope?" I asked Danny as I bent down to whisper in his ear.

Danny thought for a moment. "Three should be good."

"Three it is," I say as we all start walking towards the doors.

"Dear visitors," the voice of the man boomed again. "It is my great pleasure to welcome you to my humble factory. And who am I? Well..."

As soon as the doors opened up, my brain couldn't process what I was seeing. Wax dolls, like at least ten of them, singing. All of them were dressed like bakers and had little kitchen utensils in their hands. The song they sang was about Willy Wonka. Towards the end, sparklers and fireworks started to explode on stage, and a fire soon broke out. And in the center off all this, a lone chair arose from the ground. It was empty.

Suddenly, clapping arose from beside me. Started, I looked over and saw a man who was very enthusiastic about the show he had just witnessed. He was dressed weirdly. Weird like he had on a long velvet coat and a brown top hat. He was pale like he hadn't seen the sun in years, and his sunglasses covered most of his face.

"Oh yes!" he exclaimed very loudly as he glanced at all of us. "That was fantastic. I was worried it was getting a little dodgy in the middle part, but then the finale, wow."

The man then hopped the stairs in front of us and began speaking, however I couldn't focus on that. I glanced down at Danny, who was staring at me with a weird look on his face as well.

"What do you think?" I whispered to him. "Red flag number one?"

Danny shook his head. "No, let's give him a pass on that one."

I shrugged. "Okay."

The man in front of up was not what I expected. I expected someone more like a businessman. Not...this man child parading himself around. This Wonka guy was not what I expected, and by hearing him converse with everyone here I made a mental list of everything he was saying.

He then proceeded to lead us inside after he was done saying weird shit. I kept Danny close to me as we walked in. Almost immediately, we were hit by a sudden gust of hot air as we stepped into the foyer. I immediately started to sweat, and I swore at myself for not bringing a bottle of water in with me.

"Throw your coats anywhere," Wonka instructed to all of us, and he didn't have to tell me twice. I tore off my coat and set it on the floor since there was nowhere to hang them. I was left wearing my hoodie, but I was still hot. It pulled that off which only left me in a short-sleeved shirt, which revealed my ink covered arms. Just as I finished, I looked up to see Willy Wonka staring at my arms.

"You got a problem, William?" I asked him sarcastically as I readjusted my ponytail. As if he were caught off guard, he turned away before sliding his jacket off and onto the floor and tosses his sunglasses on top of them.

"No," he said with a monotone as he started to walk down the long hallway with the children following closely behind him, fighting for his attention.

"His names Willy, mom," Danny said to me as if I embarrassed him in front of all the children he wasn't going to see after this day is over.

"I am not going to call a grown ass man Willy," I said to him as we followed behind the others. However, the farther down the hallway we walked, I couldn't help but feel as if the corridor was getting smaller. The once large hallway was now cramped. Everyone was shoulder to shoulder by the time we reached the end of the hall. By then, it was so tight that everyone was hunched over. At the end of the hall, there was a small door. So small that only my head could possibly fit through.

"Why's the door so small?" Asked the small boy, quite rudely I might add. If my kid spoke like that, he would have gotten smacked upside the head so hard.

"To keep all the all the big chocolate flavor inside," Wonka said with a slight laugh. I kept my eyes on him as he turned the small door, and with a slight push of his gloved hand, he pushed. Instead of the small door opening, a much larger door swung open.

I thought we were now stepping into the factory where the candy was made and packaged. Basically, I was expecting a large room with machines and conveyer belts everywhere. Hell, I expected to see people lounging around on stools making sure everything was okay. But this? This was not what I expected.

It was like he brought the outside into the factory. There was grass everywhere, but it didn't look real. I didn't know how to explain what I was seeing, and by judging by everyone else's faces, they didn't know either.

Wonka continued to talk, but I tuned him mostly out as I looked closely at everything. From what he was talking, the brown river in front of me was hot melted chocolate. Not the burst sewer main I thought it was. But to be fair, who the hell has a chocolate river in their factory.

"The waterfall is most important," Wonka continued to say. "It mixes the chocolate. Makes it light and frothy. No other factory in the world mixes their chocolate by waterfall."

"That answers that question," I say to myself. It makes sense though. I doubt Hershey's did that. They'd get slapped with so many health code violations so fast. At least this reminds me to never eat a Wonka bar again.

"Are you going to try the grass?" A voice said beside me, which caused me to jump a little. Since I had drowned then out, I didn't realize all the other parents and children were gone. Even Danny ran off somewhere where I couldn't see them. I looked over to see Wonka standing beside me with a smile plastered on his pale face.

"Pardon me?" I asked. Due to me not paying attention to what he was talking about earlier, I had no idea what he was talking about.

"The grass," he said with excitement as he motioned to it. "It's edible. Try it."

I looked down at the grass at my feet. "You want me to try the grass that everyone's been stomping on with their dirty shoes?"

"Well," he said taken aback. "That's gross," I say to him, utterly shocked. "I've been walking all over England in these shoes."

"I'd be more than happy to get you a piece that wasn't stepped on," Wonka says, trying to convince me.

"That's not the point," I say to him.

"Do you not like my candies?" he asked, visibly hurt.

"No, I have no issues with it. I'm just not going to live off candy like my son does. Do you know how hard it is to get that kid to eat a vegetable?"

Wonka cringed when I said vegetable. "Ew."

"Let me guess," I say as I roll my eyes. "All you eat is candy?"

"Because it's the best thing in the world," Wonka says as he tries to make a valid point.

"Okay, well, have fun getting diabetes," I say as I walk away from him to find Danny.

It wasn't hard to find Danny. He was standing next to what looked like a tree. Well, a tree in Wonka eyes. Judging by how pale that guy is, he never steps foot outside.

"Whatcha got there?" I asked him as I stopped next to him. "It's like a gummy, licorice thing," he told me in between chews. He held up a piece and offered it to me. "It tastes like lemonade. Try a piece."

I shook my head. "I'm good."

As Danny finished up his candy, I looked over to see everybody gathered around by the river. I grabbed Danny's hand and began making our way over there. The closer we got, the more of the conversation I could hear.

"Their Oompa-Loompas," I heard Wonka say, and I narrowed my eyes in confusion. What in the hell was an Oompa-Loompa?

The closer we got to the group; the individual they were talking about came into view. It looked like an adult, but smaller. He wore what looked like a red, plastic suit, and he was trimming the fake grass.

"Look Mom," Danny says as he points to the person. "A midget."

"Danny!" I hissed at him as I smacked him upside the head. "We don't say that."

"But you say it all the time," he counters back.

"Shut up," I say to him as I turned back to look at the group of people, and I saw what I thought was a smirk on Wonka's face. But that quickly changed to a disappointed look as he cast his gaze to the opposite side of the chocolate river.

I looked up to see that chubby German boy Augusta's dipping his hands in the chocolate. I couldn't help but gag when he kept cupping the liquid into his mouth and then back in to get more. His mom, who didn't seem to be surprised by what he was doing, shouted his name in an attempt to get him to stop, but it did nothing.

"Hey little boy," Wonka starts to say loudly to Augusta's in attempt to get him to stop. My chocolate must be untouched by human hands."

Before anyone could say anything, or do anything as well, Augusta's fell headfirst into the chocolate river. His mother let out a loud scream, and I could see Wonka's jaw clench as he took a deep breath and closes his eyes. He was pissed. Augusta's mother kept screaming and begging for someone to help her boy who was flailing around in the chocolate, but no one made a move.

"God damnit," I say under my breath as I take off running as fast as I could to get the drowning boy. The fake grass wasn't easy to run on. It made things difficult.

By the time I had made it to the boy, this contraption with a long tube made its way over to the section of chocolate the boy was splashing in. Quickly, I got down on my knees and outstretched my hand to him. He was barely three feet from me, and he was struggling just to reach my hand. Suddenly, just as his fingertips were about to graze mine, he got caught in the current of the pipe that was sucking up the chocolate.

I lost count of how many times that boy circled around it, but before I knew it, he got pulled under and out of everyone's line of sight. At least, until he reappeared in the pipe. As I walked back to the group, I kept my eyes on the kid. At first, he went up the tube fast, but then he slowed to a stop. By the time I had gotten back to the group and my kid, a low humming began to sound over the room. It took me a second to realize, but it was the Oompa-Loompas making that sound.

"What are they doing?" asked the girl who came in with a mink coat that cost more than my rent.

"Why I believe they are going to treat up to a little song. It is quite a special occasion, of course. They haven't had a fresh audience in many a moon."