Into the Pit | To Be Beautiful | Count the Ways
How do I kill thee? Let me count the ways...
Oh, Death, show me now your ravaged face,
Oh, Death, how I long for your chilly embrace.
Oh, Death, my life is such a misery
Teenager Millie Fitzsimmons is a social outcast, both because of her kooky family and her gothic appearance and interests. While living with her grandfather during her parents' teaching job overseas, Millie meets a kindred spirit in the new boy at school. However, an explosive argument between them further drives Millie into despair. Refusing to celebrate Christmas with her cheery family, Millie instead retreats to her grandfather's shed and hides inside an old antique bear. The bear then turns on, locks Millie inside, and tells her that as a gift, he'll let her choose how she dies.
The third short story of the Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights series.
Tropes related to “Count the Ways”:
- Affably Evil: While set and determined on killing Millie, Funtime Freddy still cheerily converses with her as she decides which death she wants.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Millie's hair color isn't described in-text, but a deleted illustration shows her as a brunette.
- Bears Are Bad News: Funtime Freddy looks like a creepy clown, has a Creepy High-Pitched Voice, and decides to kill a teenager simply because he's bored.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Millie uses her poetry to express her wish for death. When Freddy offers it to her, she realizes she just wanted a change.
- Bookworm: Millie and Dylan both love to read gothic literature.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Millie starts off the story extremely confrontational towards her kindly grandfather, and when frustrated lashes out at the rest of her family; it's also mentioned that she threw a fit when her parents revealed their new job. Her grandfather, however, is very understanding, explaining to her cousins that she's at a "difficult age." Millie herself realizes her actions were wrong when it's a little too late.
- Brutal Honesty: Something Millie prides herself on, despite never truly being honest with herself.
- Cheerful Child: Both of Millie's "annoyingly" peppy cousins.
- Christmas Episode: Only Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights to take place on Christmas. It's not very festive, though...
- Collector of the Strange: Millie's Grandfather, who collects various random knick-knacks and stores them in his large house.
- Commercialized Christmas: Millie claims this is why she's not celebrating the holiday, specifically pushing her cousins to ask why they're so materialistic.
- Commonality Connection: Dylan and Millie first connect over their shared style and love of gothic literature. Millie then finds out that her grandfather also likes the same poetry as her, though for different reasons.
- Cool Old Guy: As he's a beloved English Teacher, Millie's Grandfather is considered "eccentric" rather than "crazy" by the rest of the town. He ends up impressing Millie with their shared interest in Edgar Allan Poe's works.
- A Day in the Limelight: Funtime Freddy gets to be the main antagonist of this story, while he's only a background enemy in Sister Location.
- Deadpan Snarker: Millie sure loves making sarcastic remarks.
- Doting Grandparent: Millie's Grandfather absolutely loves her, and does everything he can to make her happy and comfortable despite her attitude. He learns to cook vegan recipes for her, pushes her to be more social, and despite not understanding it, allows her to act like she isn't celebrating Christmas.
- Downer Ending: We're left with Millie's Grandfather patiently waiting for her to return, setting up her presents for Christmas, unknowing of the deadly predicament she's in. Though left uncertain by the original story, the final Stitchwraith Stinger confirms she died.
- Eccentric Artist: Millie's parents and grandfather are considered "kooky" by the other neighbors, but while her grandfather is mostly interested in collecting, her parents specifically have more artistic interests. Only half their house is painted, for example.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Millie is naturally pale, and makes herself look even paler with makeup to fit the goth aesthetic.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Millie despised being referred to as "Silly Millie" in grade school, and now is mockingly called Dracula's Daughter by her classmates.
- Friendless Background: Millie only had one friend as a child, who ditched her to become more popular. Millie is the only one who can recognize that Hannah's new friends are barely tolerating her and will ditch her if they can.
- Goth: Millie, to a T. She's got the dark clothes, mourning jewelry, macabre interests, classic books, and even a black cat named Annabel Lee.
- Goths Have It Hard: Everyone in town seems to think Millie's style is strange and unnerving, furthering her outcast status.
- The Grinch: Millie is dreading Christmas even before her fallout with Dylan, and said fallout only makes her feelings worse.
- Homemade Sweater from Hell: Millie detests her aunt and uncle's family Christmas sweaters.
- In Medias Res: The short actually begins once Millie is already inside of Funtime Freddy, and flashes back to explain the buildup.
- Just Friends: This is what Dylan thought he and Millie were; unbeknownst to him, she thought they were quasi-dating until she saw him with his actual girlfriend.
- Large Ham: Funtime Freddy, as expected.
- Motor Mouth: Funtime Freddy loves to talk, and tells Millie all the grisly details of his murder ideas in detail.
- New Transfer Student: Dylan, who moves in without any preconceived notions of Millie or her family.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Millie imagines Death as a hot man coming to take her away from all of her problems, and obsesses over all macabre stories she can get her hands on. When actually faced with death, though, she realizes it's not what she thought...
- Not Like Other Girls: Deliberately deconstructed: when Millie tells Dylan that his girlfriend is "blonde and basic," Dylan snaps that Brooke is actually very nice and interesting, and he's shocked that Millie would judge someone based on their appearance due to her own outcast status. This is what causes their fallout.
- Parental Abandonment: Millie's parents took a teaching job in Saudi Arabia and left her with her grandfather. Though to be fair, they asked her if she wanted to come, and she responded by throwing a temper tantrum.
- Put on a Bus: Millie, when it's left unclear if she lives or dies. The epilogues reveal that the bus crashed.
- Sadistic Choice: Funtime Freddy excitedly tells Millie that she gets to choose how she dies; there is no option for survival.
- Shout-Out: Millie especially loves the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. Dylan suggests to her th works of H. P. Lovecraft and The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.
- Stalker without a Crush: Despite being locked in a shed, Funtime Freddy somehow knows about Millie's hated nicknames, poems, and woes in life.
- Teen Idol: Millie's obsessed with rock star Kurt Carrion.
- Uncertain Doom: Millie thinks she might be able to evade the beheading if she moves fast enough. The story cuts away just as Freddy finishes his countdown, leaving it ambiguous as to whether or not she made it.
- When I Was Your Age...: Millie's Grandfather says this a few times, though it's all in good fun.
