One million people were gathered in front of the gates to Wonkaland, which was either in England or America. Nobody really knew. The sky was a dark gr[redacted]y col[redacted]r.

From the outside, Wonkaland did not look like a happy place. It was one perfectly fenced-off square mile of bare concrete and old factory buildings embellished with moss and broken windows. None of them appeared as if they had been used since the first contest, if not long before. But everyday automated trucks would drive out of one building with Wonka candies and crumpets and birth control pills and death control pills and such. They never stopped.

Everyone knew this was because the real Wonkaland was underground. But no one in the crowd, as massive and excited as they all were, would be seeing any of it. That was a privilege reserved only for the Golden Ticket winners.

"Look," shouted a man in the crowd, who happened to have the best eyesight in the world. He was pointing to the sky. "One of the winners!"

Everyone was quiet and confused for several minutes, but then they all got very excited. A helicopter began to fly over the horizon, approaching the entrance to the gates. Everyone knew that it had to be one of the winners, since any aircraft that approached Wonkaland without permission would have already been shot down. After it was about halfway there, it stopped moving and started hovering in one place.

"It's JUROR!"

Three people jumped out of the helicopter with parachutes: JUROR, his mother, AUGUR, and his father, DOLOR. They made it safely to the ground without any trouble, took off their parachutes, and began to walk to the entrance.

The crowd made room for them. No one was foolish enough to try and steal the Golden Ticket. The day before, while being interviewed, a crazed man had tried to attack the final winner and steal his ticket. Before he could take the ticket or cause any real harm, chocolate bullets came from the sky and entered his head in a way that chocolate normally didn't.

It was true that there were many people in the crowd who would have decided that they were fine stealing from a child if it meant they could have a Golden Ticket. But it was also true that none of these people wanted chocolate in their brains.

In recognition of the day's importance, JUROR was even more unfinished than he usually was. Both of his shoelaces were untied instead of only his right, and he wasn't wearing socks on either foot. The temporary rhinoceros tattoo on his forehead was beginning to fade.

JUROR's mother and father were thin and hairless. They were covered with small open sores and bruises, effects of the horrible cancers that were slowly killing them and the chemotherapy they had once began. They had both received some treatment, although they each had stopped it prematurely for the purposes of art.

AUGUR and DOLOR had been married for many years, but they split up after JUROR was born with his father taking sole custody.

Their marriage had been horrible. They were both bankers and for most of their lives had cared about nothing aside from money. They never took days off and always looked forward to foreclosing on homes and small businesses and orphanages. On their wedding day, both of them kept wishing that everybody would shut up and finish their cake so they could both get back to work. They hadn't even loved or liked each other, and it only got worse as time went on. They saw each minute they spent with each other as a minute they weren't at the bank.

After JUROR was born, this didn't change, and they amicably decided they would get a divorce so they could both be rid of each other. JUROR's dad took custody but had him raised by a maid, so he never saw either of his parents from the ages of one to five.

When his art career took off DOLOR decided to pay him another visit, coming to see one of his new gallery exhibitions. At first he had only come with the idea that his son's talent might be a good way to make money, but as soon as he saw the paintings he felt something in his heart sizzlegasp. He stared at them all for one straight week without speaking or eating or sleeping.

He called AUGUR and told her to come and see it. She said no, so he told her he'd give her all the money he had. After she flew down and saw her son's art, her heart sizzlegasped too.

After that they gave away most of their money to their maid and sent her away, got remarried, and began spending all of their time with each other and their son. JUROR was a smart young man and even though at first he thought they were trying to trick him, he eventually realized they were being sincere and figured that he would try giving them a chance. So they became a real loving family. They believed in what he was doing so much that they began incorporating Truncatism into their lives the same way he did.

They went on plenty of day trips together in between JUROR's art exhibitions, to museums and zoos and the innermost chambers of active nuclear reactors (JUROR had been busy that day with an exhibit, so they had gone without him). They never ran any deer over but they totally would have been open to it if it had happened.

JUROR was happy that his parents were supporting his art, and even more happy that they got along so well compared to how they were when he was little. But sometimes - and he felt guilty for even thinking it - when his parents were hugging each other or telling each other about their day or regurgitating large solidified chunks of black blood or pieces of their stomach lining during family dinner, he thought they might have been misapplying certain aspects of Truncatism and what it was intended to represent.

His parents felt extremely guilty because of the way they had ignored him when he was younger, and he could see that. He knew that they were trying to overcompensate by involving themselves in something they didn't completely understand. He wanted to tell them that they didn't need to push themselves and that he wasn't holding any grudges against them, but it was hard to muster up the courage to say it. He didn't want to hurt them and send the message that he didn't appreciate it or love him. They were trying so hard.

The three of them made it to the red carpet that had been laid out for them and stopped right in front of the gate, and JUROR decided to end that train of thought. He told himself that it was for the purposes of art.

The crowd had already turned away from the three of them to focus on the large pillar of smoke that had appeared in the crowd. Nobody had to guess who it was.

Mahuika Jewel walked forward and her parents followed, Mr. Jewel in the middle of a horrible coughing fit. It was not possible for anyone in the crowd to describe the way Mahuika looked, but it was possible for them to note the way that she walked and moved, and they all did.

Her eyes faced forward and never back or to the side. If she needed to see something she wasn't already staring at, she would turn her entire head instead of only moving her eyes, as if she were a tarsier. Whenever she took a step, her legs and arms moved without rhythm, structure, or purpose. They slumped down and wobbled aimlessly and every time they managed to carry her even a small step forward it appeared to be a true miracle.

Her pen was always carried in her right hand and held against her hip or her mouth and never anywhere else. When she brought it up to inhale or occasionally to reload it with more wax she moved with such speed that it could only register as a fast blur.

Mr. and Mrs. Jewel were chubby and well-groomed. They both were miserable and it showed on their faces. They had five daughters and Wonka had picked the worst one. It wasn't fair at all.

Mahuika vaped. JUROR tried to greet her by extending a hand for her to shake, but she did not offer hers. He pulled it back quickly and tried to play it off like he had been the one not to finish the handshake for the purposes of art but it was super obvious that it hadn't gone down that way and he spent the next several minutes having an internal panic attack and praying that no one had seen it.

Next came the sixth winner. He was alone.

One man in the crowd booed as he approached the gate. The boy stopped and stared at him. Everyone else did, too. The man realized that they wanted an explanation.

"You're messing with the order," said the man. "There's a poetic symmetry to all this and you've gone and ruined it all by coming here this early."

Someone punched the man in the back of the head and he fell to the floor. No one complained. Nobody was going around hunting poets or feeding them to crocodiles but that didn't mean they were liked.

"I don't know why he came here with the expectation of hearing poetry," said a woman in the crowd. "He was clearly wrong to have done that."

The boy ignored everyone and stood on the carpet with Mahuika and JUROR.

"Hello," said JUROR. "You must be Ch-"

"Chili," said Chili. "My name is Chili Floss."

JUROR looked confused, but he shrugged and stuck out another hand. Chili didn't shake it.

JUROR prematurely ended the conversation. "For the purposes," he muttered to himself. He vowed to stop trying.

Chili was angry again. There had been a short time where he had something he chose to call a revelation after he won the Golden Ticket and found his last living relative dead where he hadn't felt angry. But it hadn't lasted long, and he was right back to being angry again, and more than ever. He wanted to hurt people.

It had not been his fault when the man attacked him and was shot dead as Ned was interviewing him. But he liked it, he had said to himself. He probably even wanted it to happen again.

After that came Keerthi and her family, Mr. and Mrs. Ahir. They were all happy and emotionally secure, so there was very little about them that was interesting to talk about. Keerthi had always made friends by walking up to the first person she saw and going straight ahead and introducing herself. It was awkward at first, but pushing through that had almost always resulted in her making a new chum.

"Hello," Keerthi said to Chili. "It's nice to meet you."

"I want you to die," said Chili.

"Oh," said Keerthi, who realized that making friends must have been very different in either England or America, wherever she was. She petted Chetan and whispered to him that she was sure she would figure it all out by the end of the contest.

Everyone waited in silence after that until the ground began to shake several minutes later. Several million crabs flooded through the crowd, forming a literal wave that moved without harming anyone beneath it, Tide Honey riding on top. She was wearing the same suit she was during her interview, and both of her arms were outstretched. Her head was tilted down. Nobody could see it, but she was smiling.

The crabs dropped her off, and they all scuttled off, two large ones staying behind.

One was Jeremy, who snipped and snapped.

One was Janice, Jeremy's crab wife, who snapped and snipped.

Keerthi introduced herself to the only person who was still willing to be friendly and asked why she had brought shellfish instead of parents.

"Because," said Tide. "My mom is an ugly nerd, and all she cares about are books! And my dad is a smelly dork, and all he cares about is…"

Tide stopped but not for the purposes of art. She would have finished her sentence honestly, but she remembered that the answer was something that might have made some people want to feed her father to an enormous crocodile. She was angry at her father, but she didn't want him to be swallowed up by anything that wasn't guilt.

"Science," she lied.

"Oh," said Keerthi. "I'm sorry to hear that. I was never any good in my science classes."

"I want you to die," said Chili.

"You already told me," said Keerthi. "Um. I don't want you to die, if that changes anything, Ch-"

"Chili," said Chili. "My name is Chili Floss. I want you to die. You are lazy and rotten and ugly. You are worthless. Die."

"No," said Keerthi, who had both the self-confidence to defend herself and the sympathy necessary to understand that Chili was probably going through something and that she didn't need to take any of it personally. "I like being alive."

Chill balled up his fists and angrily kicked at the floor. His first plan had failed. He didn't understand it! He told her that she was worthless. Why did she still want to be alive? Didn't she understand that she was lazy and rotten and ugly and that nobody would ever love her and that she didn't deserve love anyway? What was wrong with her?

Keerthi ignored Chili and turned to the others.

"Hello, Mahuika. It's nice to meet you. I heard that you vape."

"I vape," said Mahuika.

"She vapes," said Mrs. Jewel.

"She vapes," said Mr. Jewel.

"Do you do anything aside from vaping? I'm sure there's more to you than that," said Keerthi.

Mahuika kept quiet and blew out a big puff of smoke. Keerthi coughed. It smelled like lemons.

"Oh my god," shouted a woman in the crowd. "What in the world is that?"

Far off in the distance, a speck appeared. It rose up and fell to the ground in a pattern of long arcs, going up and down over and over as if it were a basketball being slowly bounced against the pavement. Every time it went up, it became a little larger, and soon everyone realized that the speck was heading towards them. Eventually it became clear that the speck was actually three specks, and those three specks bounced one final time to land on the red carpet with the other five winners.

Two of those three specks were being held by the one in the middle, which set them down gently on the ground. They were Mr. and Mrs. Lau, whose stomach had shrunk since her interview with Ned. They were both smiling.

They were the only ones.

The top of it stood eleven feet above three feet beneath the ground and it was as wide as something that was one meter wider than an object with no width. The body was made up of a transparently orange gelatinous substance encased inside a hard durable plastic. It had bones, muscles, and organs, all fashioned out of a combination of metals, plastics, and artificially grown human tissue. It had four eyes, all pitch-black and triangle-shaped, and no mouth. It had tall ears and a long tail and it stood on two feet, although it hunched so far forward that all six of its claws were dragging against the carpet. It had a sealed pouch which was reinforced with clear palladium.

There was a baby inside the pouch, floating inside of liquid. He was connected to many wires.

"See," said Tide. "You have so many great sea creatures you could have taken inspiration from for this. Starfish. Octopuses. Sea horses. And instead you go with a kangaroo. It's lazy. You're lazy."

"I don't think kangaroos have six arms," said Keerthi.

"No," said Lim, through his suit. His voice sounded the way good chocolate tasted when fed to a baby inside of a mechanical spider-kangaroo who was using a voice synthesizer. "But my Taranturoo does."

Lim Lau was proud of himself. He was the most evolved human on the planet and was as perfect as perfect could be. He understood why everyone was jealous of him. It was very hard for lesser people to see someone who was better than they ever could be from the start. It must have been unbearable for them, so he had already resolved not to hold it against them.

He was not insecure about anything. And anyone who thought that only did because they were not as smart as he was.

"Does it hurt?" asked Keerthi. "All those wires look like they're making your little face scrunch up."

"No," said Lim, who had no problem taking the time to explain how his Taranturoo suit worked. He made sure to talk slowly so all the less advanced children could follow along. "Right now, my central nervous system can only feel what my Taranturoo body does. I hear with his ears and see with his eyes."

"Wow," said Keerthi. "You are a smart baby."

"Yes," said Lim. "I am."

"He is as intelligent as he is because of all the Chopin we had him listen to," said Mrs. Lau. "Maybe some of it was the gene modification, but it mostly came down to Chopin in the end. Even the worst classical music is wonderful for stimulating growing baby brains. Even when those brains are lazy and have terrible taste in music."

"He loves Chopin," said Mr. Lau.

"I don't love Chopin," said Lim.

"You do," said Mrs. Lau, sadly shaking her head. "I don't like Chopin, and neither does your father, because we have good taste. But you love Chopin. You always have."

"I don't," said Lim, stomping his Taranturoo foot. "Stop it. You promised you wouldn't do this."

"You are young and foolish," said Mr. Lau. "Please stop with this silly lie about you not finding the unimaginative trite musical creations of Frédéric Chopin to be anything other than your favorite sounds in the whole world. No one is upset at you for having horrible taste. But you must be truthful about it. Your dishonesty is lazy."

Lim folded his many arms together and mumbled to himself, and all conversation died off.

There was only one person who needed to come now, and they were all waiting for him. The crowd and the winners stood quietly as the minutes and the hours passed by. There was the sense that they were all becoming a part of history. Sometimes someone would snip or snap or announce that they vaped but for the most part it was nothing but dead silence.

"You know," said Keerthi, who had been thinking to herself. "The phrase dead silence is silly. Wouldn't dead silence be noise?"

"Shut up," said Chili.

One full hour passed with nothing happening. But then the clock struck 12:17 and a bell rang out of the building closest to the locked gate. The crowd cheered as the doors opened.

Mr. Charles Bucket looked no different from many old men. He had long gray blonde hair and a thick mustache and beard. He was skinny and he wore a tall top hat. He was wearing glasses or a monocle, and his breath smelled like hamburgers or fish and chips.

He had a cane in his right hand. He slowly walked down the stairs and to the gate door where all the winners and their guardians were waiting for him. He was frowning. Every time he took a step it seemed as if it was painful for him.

When he made it close enough to the gate, he pulled a small gun out of his pocket, put the barrel of it into his mouth, and pulled the trigger. His body collapsed to the floor and blood spilled out on the carpet, which thankfully for the cleaners was already red.

Everyone except Mahuika and Jeremy and Janice screamed and jumped back.

"Oh my god," said Mr. Jewel.

"Why would he do," said AUGUR.

"I vape," said Mahuika.

Five seconds later Mr. Bucket did an octuple backflip out of the door he had come out before, launching himself forty feet into the air before landing on his body and excitedly throwing his arms in the air. He waited for everyone to stop crying and screaming before he spoke.

"Everyone," announced Mr. Bucket. "I was merely rusing you. It was only a robot. I am the real Charles Bucket! If I really wanted to bite the bullet, I would have chosen a much tastier one, I assure you."

Mr. and Mrs. Ahir grabbed Keerthi's hands and began to walk back the way they came. Mr. Bucket frowned.

"Where are you going?" he shouted.

"Away," said Mr. Ahir.

"You are a bad person," said Mrs. Ahir. "It is wrong to pretend to kill yourself in front of children."

"And a baby, even," added Mr. Ahir.

"It wasn't that bad," said Lim. "Once you've experienced your own birth, there isn't much that can traumatize you."

Keerthi broke free of her parents grasp and stopped walking.

"Mom, Dad," she said. "I know that you only want to leave because you're worried about me, and I appreciate that.I know how it looks, and I know Mr. Bucket might appear to be a little unconventional. But I can do this. Please let me try. We can do it together."

"No," said Mr. Bucket. "You cannot. Not together. Looking at you now, counting you all on my fingers… together with the guardians, there are simply too many characters for any reasonable person to remember. The children will have to come in alone. You may pick up what remains of them after the tour."

"But the ticket said that we could take two guardians with us," said Keerthi.

"To the entrance, yes! And aside from Angry Orphan Boy over there everyone managed that much. But the six of you will need to enter my factory by yourselves."

"Please? Mom? Dad?" asked Keerthi.

Mr. and Mrs. Ahir looked at their daughter whom they loved very much and who almost never asked for anything and at Mr. Bucket, who was tap dancing on top of a perfect replica of his own corpse, and at each other.

"No," they said, pulling Keerthi away into the crowd.

"Oh well," said Mr. Bucket. "But that's why I asked for six. Okay! Everyone else, say your goodbyes and come forward! Don't worry about showing me the Golden Tickets, I don't care, no one cares, we know who you are already. We've got so much to do! So much to see! A world of pure imagination and limitless discovery awaits us all! In the doors we go, we go, we go!"

Mr. Bucket pressed a button on his coat, opening the metallic gates the children were standing in front of, before reverse backflipping back into the darkness of the factory doors he had initially come out of.

The doors began to slowly close.

"I suggest the five of you hurry, said Mr. Bucket. "And only the five of you, please. Don't make my drones overwork themselves. Now! Come, quick! These doors will only be opening once today."

JUROR gave half of a hug to his mother and half of a hug to his father and ran through the door.

Mahuika vaped and shambled through the door.

Tide snipped and snapped in Jeremy's direction and ran inside.

Lim told his parents that he didn't like Chopin, slammed his tail against the ground, and hopped inside.

Chili said nothing, but took a quick glance at the corpse as he made his way to the door. It did not look like a robot.

The doors closed half of the way, three quarters of the way, four-fifths of the way… and then Keerthi pushed through the crowd, ignoring the loud screams of her mother and father, and squeezed her way inside.

It was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, she once heard.