History Main / DeadAllAlong

* In Creator/JessFranco's ''Film/{{Venus In Furs|Franco1969}}'', the protagonist [[DiscoveringYourOwnDeadBody finds his own dead body]] at the end and his voiceover narration states that he's been dead all along. This might indicate that he was killed (or [[DrivenToSuicide killed himself]]) in retribution for a crime he was [[AccompliceByInaction complicit in]] at the beginning of the story, but the whole thing's too much of a MindScrew to say for sure.

* ''Anime/OnePieceBaronOmatsuriAndTheSecretIsland'': The sixth film is the darkest piece of media in the entire franchise, and this is a cornerstone of the plot. When the Straw Hats accept an invitation to a strange resort, they find that its owner, Baron Omatsuri, has a flower growing from his shoulder while everyone else has plants growing from their skulls. When they talk to the Baron's first mate, Muchigoro, after the first two games, he starts recalling some weird things, like meeting Roger (who died 22 years ago) and a bad memory of a storm...and then he shrivels up. The Baron is the only human who's still alive after an awful storm, and everyone else on the island is a plant golem modeled after the Baron's memories. And the puppet master is [[TheDogWasTheMastermind the flower on the Baron's shoulder]], the Lily Carnation, an EldritchAbomination that feeds on [[HumanSacrifice Human Sacrifices]] to maintain the golems.

* The part of ''WesternAnimation/AllegroNonTroppo'' (known as the "Italian answer to ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}''" and not to be confused with "Ma Allegro non Troppo") called "Valse Triste" follows a scrawny cat/kitten wandering through the ruined shell of a city house, showing its memories of how it was once the pet of the family who lived there. Then, just before we hear the crane with the wrecking ball approaching the house to knock it down, the cat suddenly vanishes, accompanied by a purple outline glow - it was already dead. Watch it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Oc_J1Lu-o here]] (the film is presented as a comedy-drama and the clip starts with a few seconds of comedy).

* ''Film/{{Adrift|2018}}'': As the film progresses, we learn that Richard did not survive the hurricane and that Tami was only talking to a vision of Richard from her own delirium.

** In the Dark Knight questline in "VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV" introduced in the Heavensward expansion, you, the Warrior of Light and all around good guy, meet the dark knight Fray who becomes something akin to your mentor in teaching the ways of weilding the dark arts for good purposes. As the questline progresses, Fray begins to act more and more volatile, which seems to in turn make you more and more volatile, accosting ungrateful merchants, publicly voicing his discontent when something doesn't go your way, and all around seeming to say every single negative thing you've ever wanted to say but never did, appearing like a dark relection of yourself. At the end of the questline, it is revealed that's exactly what he is, as the real Fray died before you even met him and all this time you have been talking to his corpse, which you accidentally reanimated and turned into a conduit for your dark and negative thought or feeling you've had in your time as a hero.

* ''WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender'': Season 6 reveals that Shiro has been [[TheDisembodied a disembodied spirit]] since the season 2 finale, with the Shiro that joined the team in season 3 being [[CloningBlues a clone made by Haggar]]. However, the Black Lion preserved his spirit, [[BodyBackupDrive which allows Allura to transfer it into the clone's body]].

* Website/CollegeHumor: ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hksKLHt9Kzg Shyamalan]]'' parodies the decline of Creator/MNightShyamalan's career by casting M. Night AsHimself in a Shyamalan-esque supernatural thriller. At the end the mysterious man who haunts Shyamalan reveals the truth:
-->'''M Night:''' My career is dying.\\
'''Pale Man:''' ''Your career has been dead this whole time''.

* The character Heracles (the party member who actively goes by that name, not the [[HelloInsertNameHere nameless hero]] or "General Heracles") in ''VideoGame/GloryOfHeracles DS'' is actually Heracles's nephew, Iphicles. When Heracles agreed to help Daedalus in his experiments to revive his son, Iphicles gets hit by the blast, gains immortality, and believes himself to be Heracles. When the real Heracles is found and Iphicles regains his memories, he explains that he was already dead and simply fades from existence. Luckily, the real Heracles regains his memory and his strength and thus takes the same role in the party.

* Dr. Munoz from Creator/HPLovecraft's short story "Literature/CoolAir" has been dead, keeping himself alive via an air conditioner and lots of chemicals.

* Kobato herself in ''Manga/{{Kobato}}'', though the manga and anime provide different explanations for how she died. She [[NeverBareheaded always wears]] one of her nice hats, and not having her hat ever removed is SeriousBusiness, though the fact that she wears several different ones means she ''can'' take them off. Turns out the reason for them is to hide a spiritual crown that signals her as being dead.

* The twist of Laird Barron's short story "Procession of the Black Sloth" is that the main character, the corporate security consultant, Royce Hawthorne, is actually dead and is stuck in some version of a Buddhist hell, where he is forced to relieve some kind of twisted version of his earthly life, where his work was spying on people for his company, meaning he had to decidate himself to the mindnumbing task of observe people's daily routines during the day and attend a seemingly endless string of rather dreadful business parties at night, while struggling with a lack of sleep, hangovers, dissociation from his double life, and constant paranoia over being exposed. When he finally figures out what is happening to him, Royce ponders the idea that he might not actually be truly dead, but might merely be trapped in some sort of coma as a result of his lifestyle, and that everything he experiences is his addled brain trying to construct meaning from the bits and pieces it remembers, but he concludes that it hardly makes any real difference in regards to the torment he is subjected to.

* In the bonus chapter of ''Phantasmat 3: The Endless Night'' the main character is revealed to have died in the car crash which occurs during the introduction. The twist is that her ''daughter'', who wasn't supposed to have made it either, is somehow saved by her actions during the main game, despite the fact that none of them actually happened in reality.

* Everybody in the Smith Syndicate in ''VideoGame/{{Killer7}}'', in fact, [[AllThereInTheManual according to the supplementary material]] Dan, Con, Mask, Kaede, Coyote, and Kevin have each died THREE TIMES and Garcian has died at least once, possibly twice depending on who wins the Third World War and if you consider LossOfIdentity to be an actual death.
* The old man in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', who is actually the last King of Hyrule. You don't find out until after the tutorial, which raises...questions.

!!As this is a {{Death Trope|s}} and {{Ending Trope|s}}, [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff unmarked spoilers abound]]. [[Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned Beware]].

* In ''Literature/{{Starchild}}'', Boysie Gann is mysteriously transported to a remote part of the reefs of space, where he meets a settler named Harry Hickson, who gives him food and water and sends a message to a nearby town. When Gann arrives at the town, though, people are extremely skeptical of his story, and, to explain why, take him to see Hickson's grave. Hickson had died three years previously.

* ''Anime/{{Bakemonogatari}}'' has this occur a few times, appropriately as the series deals with various manifestations of folklore.

** Tadatsuru Teori is a specialist who is able to create unliving dolls from corpses. When Araragi confronts him as the perpetrator of a kidnapping plot, he is destroyed by one of his own creations. But when Araragi later encounters him again [[spoiler:while traveling through hell]], we learn that he had already been dead for years before that first encounter, but he is still able to control puppets he had previously crafted in his likeness to continue his work in the living world from the afterlife.

* Ambrose Bierce's 1890 short story "Literature/AnOccurrenceAtOwlCreekBridge", which tells of a Civil War soldier who's hung from the titular bridge by the opposing side. The rope breaks, allowing him to escape, and he sets off on a journey to reunite with his love. Just when he's about to reach her, the truth is revealed. The rope ''didn't'' break and he [[DyingDream dreamed the whole story]].

** ''VideoGame/FatalFrameII'' has Itsuki Tachibana, the imprisoned boy that served as a guide to Mio. It's not as shocking as most other examples, as Minakami Village is a ghost town, but it is presented as a shock to Mio and the player to finally enter the storehouse that is his prison and seeing his [[DrivenToSuicide hung corpse]] in a flashback.

** In ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet'', it is revealed near the end of the plot that [[TheProfessor Professor Sada or Turo]] (depending on version) has been dead for several years. The Professor you have been talking to throughout the whole game is [[VirtualGhost an AI, given all of the Professor's memories and emotions]], just in case they were to die.