Step Closer | Dance With Me | Coming Home
Get out the tissues, you're gonna need it for this one.
Susie's mom read quickly, until she got to the part where the ghost found out that if he went away from the house, to a special place of sparkly light where the truly happy ghosts hung out, the ghost could never ever be separated from his family no matter where they went.
Young Susie is confused. Her family seems distant and sad, and she can't tell why. Her father has disappeared, her mother is less social and more unhealthy, and her sister has retreated into herself. She wishes she could know what was wrong so that she could fix it... and why she has to leave every night, following Chica off into the far distance.
Because that's the thing: Susie is dead, and she has been for over a year now, killed in a terrible incident along with several other children. She's not actually there, and her family is struggling to pick up the pieces she left behind. But Samantha starts feeling something, feeling like her sister may still be here, and may be trying to speak to her...
The twelfth Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights story, and the final of the fourth book, Step Closer.
Tropes related to “Coming Home”:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Chica only wears a bib.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: One of the few facts known about Susie in the games– that she had a deceased dog, which Afton leveraged to get her into the back room– is omitted from this story. (Though Samantha is compared to a Pekingese dog at one point.) It's also heavily implied that her body was found, while in the games, she and the other victims remained missing and hidden within the animatronics.
- Adaptational Dye-Job: In the games, novel trilogy, and film series, Susie is blonde with blue eyes. This story distinctly describes her as having brown hair and eyes, while her doll, Gretchen, more matches her game appearance.
- Adaptation Expansion: Susie, who doesn't have a lot in the way of backstory in the other continuities.
- Adorably Precocious Child: Samantha uses a lot of large words and acts more mature than her age.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Even before Susie died, Samantha was not very popular among the other students due to her more mature nature. After Susie's death, she became even more isolated due to her trauma.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: A very young example in brunette, anti-social Samantha.
- Alternate Continuity: Most likely, considering Susie's different appearance, lack of a dog, and the fact that she seems to move on at the end rather than remain in an animatronic.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: At the end of the story, where Susie goes "where she could be with her family forever."
- Best Friend: Jeanie has been Patricia's best friend since they were children, and is the honorary aunt to her daughters.
- Big Little Sister: Despite being a year younger, Samantha was as tall as Susie in life.
- Bittersweet Ending: The entire short is a Downer about a family struggling with the loss of their child. But the ending, in which Samantha is able to see her sister before she leaves and tell her she loves her, is
very sweet. - Bookworm: Samantha, who prefers reading and studying to anything else.
- Brainy Brunette: Samantha.
- Cheerful Child: In life, Susie was extremely friendly, sociable, and excitable.
- Childish Older Sibling: Susie was always very fanciful and childish, while Samantha is academic and direct.
- Children Are Innocent: Susie obviously, but Samantha also has her Innocent Prodigy moments.
- Commonality Connection: A little boy from Samantha's class approaches her and asks her if she's seen her sister's ghost, as he'd seen his uncle's ghost before.
- Constantly Curious: Samantha, the little scientist.
- Cute Ghost Girl: Little Susie, who still acts her age despite being a ghost.
- The Cynic: Samantha is very scientific, and doesn't believe in fairies and talking trees like her sister does. Even when she repeatedly hears Chica's ghost, it takes her until Susie starts drawing pictures for her to accept there's a haunting going on.
- A Day in the Limelight: Susie remains, so far, the only one of the Missing Children to get her own story. As such, Chica also appears in a specialized light.
- Dead All Along: Revealed pretty early in the story, but the audience is still not told that Susie is dead until Patricia comforts Samantha at night.
- Death of a Child: The death of Susie destroyed her family, and is rightly seen as a terrible tragedy.
- Disappeared Dad: The girls' father left after the death of Susie, with him being unable to handle the emotional fallout.
- Feathered Fiend: With Chica's role as the story's antagonist.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Susie was the foolish to Samantha's responsible.
- Friendly Ghost: Susie just wants to help her family heal.
- Friend to All Living Things: A recurring motif is that Susie named the tree in the front yard, "Oliver," and was so distressed when he lost his leaves come winter that she begged Aunt Jeanie to knit a scarf to keep him warm. Samantha thought this was frivolous, but it turns out Oliver's leaves are what's keeping Susie bound to them for now.
- Ghost Amnesia: Susie has completely forgotten the day she died, and can't understand why her family is so upset all the time. She also doesn't process the fact that they don't see her.
- Good Parents: Patricia does her best to take care of Samantha following the tragedy, and makes sure to enroll her in therapy.
- Hair-Contrast Duo: Patricia notes that she has dark brown hair and a more careful personality, in contrast to Jeanie's bright blonde and sunny disposition.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Jeanie. As Susie is illustrated with her game's blonde hair, she could be seen as this, too.
- I See Them, Too: Susie feels vindicated when she finds out that Samantha can also hear Chica outside at night.
- It's All My Fault: Patricia constantly thinks back on the day of the incident and wonders what she could have done differently to save Susie. Jeanie keeps trying to convince her to move forward rather than dwelling on something that wasn't her fault.
- There are also shades of this with Samantha, as she tells her therapist that the last argument she and Susie had was when Susie hid their doll, Gretchen, so that Samantha couldn't force her to go to school. She tells her that she thinks Afton lured Susie with a promise to help her hide the doll better.
- Jacob Marley Apparel: When Samantha finally sees her sister's ghost, she's in the same outfit she was in when she died.
- Lonely Doll Girl: Samantha, despite acting very mature, still plays with dolls, and makes them study and go to school, subjects she likes and that nobody else will do with her.
- Monster of the Week: Chica, though she doesn't seem to be evil and more seems to be a reflection of Susie's death.
- Mother Nature, Father Science: While both are girls, emotional nature-loving Susie is the Girly Girl to science-obsessed Samantha's Tomboy.
- Neat Freak: It's said that Samantha's room is incredibly neat and organized, and she hates having anything out of place. In contrast to Susie, whose room was always a mess.
- Nerds Love Tough Schoolwork: Samantha literally loves to study. When she plays dolls, she has her dolls go to school and study.
- No Full Name Given: Susie's family doesn't have a surname.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Patricia and Hayden both had to live through the murder of Susie.
- Parental Abandonment: Susie and Samantha's dad decided that he "just couldn't take it" one day and left.
- Posthumous Character: Susie, who's been Dead All Along.
- Puppy Love: Implied; after talking with Drew, Samantha admits to herself that she thinks he's cute.
- The Quiet One: Samantha, who never speaks in class anymore.
- Secret Room: Hayden implied to his daughters that there was one in the house, which excited Susie. Samantha didn't believe it, until she realized that Susie had already found it and that was where she had hidden Gretchen.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Samantha likes to use big words that she's learned from books or from talking with her father.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Susie and Samantha, who are polar opposites.
- Silent Antagonist: Chica eerily never speaks throughout the short.
- Smart Guy: Samantha works methodically and in an organized manner, while Susie tries to appeal to emotions.
- Struggling Single Mother: While they're fine financially, it's clear that Patricia's separation and the death of Susie hasn't been kind to her. She's more sickly and sullen than Susie remembers, and almost has a breakdown in the car at one point when Samantha forgets her assignment.
- Textile Work Is Feminine: Patricia makes large decorative tapestries, while Jeanie is a knitter.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: The two sisters; Susie is the pink glitter-loving soft-hearted Girly Girl, while Samantha is the no-nonsense intellectual Tomboy.
- Tomboyish Ponytail: Samantha's hair is always in a tight ponytail, while Susie's hair is free-flowing.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Susie.
- Toothy Bird: Chica has visible teeth, as does her cupcake.
- Troubled Child: Samantha apparently no longer speaks in class, which freaks her classmates out. Her mother's been taking her to therapy, but it's taken a long while for the therapist to even get her to open up.
- Unfinished Business: Susie realizes that in order to move on, Samantha needs to find Gretchen.
- Vague Age: Somewhat; Susie says that she is seven and Samantha is six, but later on in the book Patricia refers to Samantha as eight. As it has been just over a year since Susie died, it's possible that Samantha's birthday is soon after the incident and she has indeed aged, while Susie's Ghost Amnesia is preventing her from realizing this.
