History Main / YouAreAlreadyDead

* Something resembling a "five-point palm exploding heart technique" is technically possible. A [[OneHitKill strong blow]] to the area of the chest in front of the heart (precordium) during the small period in which the heart is highly sensitive to mechanical or electrical disruption can induce ventricular fibrillation, which produces light-headedness followed quickly by unconsciousness and eventually (within a few minutes) death unless immediate medical attention is provided. This is called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commotio_cordis Commotio cordis]] and does happen on occasion to young athletes, especially children, such as when they are struck in the chest by baseballs. An elevated heart rate provides more opportunities for a fatal disruption to occur. However, the window of vulnerability is so fleeting (on the order of a few tens of milliseconds), doing this ''intentionally'' to a person without them being hooked up to a heart monitor (and knowing precisely when during the cardiac cycle to time the blow) is impossible (which is why every documented case in history has been accidental).

* Rabies. By the time one starts showing any symptoms at all, the virus has already made it to the brain, at which point there is next to no chance of survival. Only a handful of people have ever reached that stage and lived to speak of it, and only after receiving an experimental treatment called the Milwaukee Protocol, which involves an induced coma. Even then the survival rate was only 4 out of a little over 30 attempted cases, 3 of whom came out with permanent brain damage.

* Something resembling a "five-point palm exploding heart technique" is technically possible. A [[OneHitKill strong blow]] to the area of the chest in front of the heart (precordium) during the small period in which the heart is highly sensitive to mechanical or electrical disruption can induce ventricular fibrillation, which produces light-headedness followed quickly by unconsciousness and eventually (within a few minutes) death. This is called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commotio_cordis Commotio cordis]] and does happen on occasion to young athletes, especially children, such as when they are struck in the chest by baseballs. An elevated heart rate provides more opportunities for a fatal disruption to occur. Because the window of vulnerability is so fleeting (on the order of a few tens of milliseconds), doing this ''intentionally'' to a person without them being hooked up to a heart monitor (and knowing precisely when during the cardiac cycle to time the blow) is impossible.

* Getting bitten by a zombie in ''[[VideoGame/ProjectZomboid]]'' ''will'' infect you, causing various nasty symptoms and a steady loss of health. There is no cure; your character will die and rise again as a new zombie after a few in-game days at maximum. Getting scrached by a zombie only has a small chance of resulting in the same, but if you start showing symptoms of the infection a few hours after fighting one, then this trope still applies.

* ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'' for the NES opened with this happening to Ryu Hayabusa's father in a [[IncrediblyLamePun Cut]] [[CutScene Scene.]]

*** If you have your camera screen up, and start hearing a sound like a dying man wheezing, ''don't lower that screen''. Or do, at least you'll see it coming. On that note, if you hear a [[HellIsThatNoise sound like the clopping of a horse's hooves sped up]] in your office, you are also very dead -- it means Bonnie or Chica is inside your office, waiting to kill you next time you check your monitors.

* As mentioned in the ''Homicide: Life on the Street'' example, people caught between trains and the platform like that can survive as long as the train is keeping them in place. The train is keeping all of their bodily organs in their upper body. They can live for several hours and stay alive long enough to have full conversations with their loved ones. The second the train moves, all their internal organs come spilling out and they are dead.

*** The hero Psi use their mind to destroy the bloon from inside. Leveling them up will allow them to destroy more bloons a lot faster and destroy even [=MOAB=] class bloons apart from [=BADs=] snd boss bloons.

* YouAreAlreadyDead/FiveNightsAtFreddys

* ''Film/TheWolfOfWallStreet'' uses a nonfatal variant when Jordan Belfort (Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio) and Donnie Azoff (Creator/JonahHill) take some years-old "Lemmon 714" [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methaqualone Quaaludes]] and keep popping pills because they don't initially feel any effects. An hour and a half after taking the drugs, Jordan realises too late that he was Already Intoxicated -- and since he took so many pills, the effects are so extreme that he abruptly starts losing control of his speech and motion.

** ''4'': Any glue gunner with the Corrosive glue upgrade will cause every bloon up to rainbow to eventually pop. Both ''5'' and ''6'' increase the DamageOverTime effect to be able to affect Cermanics and [=MOAB=] bloons respectively.

---> '''Nico:''' "You're already dead. You're a ghost with no tongue, no memory. You won't be sharing any secrets."
---> '''Bryce:''' " No! No, I am Bryce Lawrence! I'm alive!."
---> '''Nico:''' "Who are you?"

[[folder:Live Action Television]]
* ''Series/{{Chernobyl}}'':
** As a rule, anyone who receives radiation burns, ''especially'' on their face, is doomed to die shortly afterward from Acute Radiation Syndrome.
** Shcherbina protests evacuating Pripyat because both he and Legasov are staying there themselves. Legasov bluntly says that yes they are, and they'll be dead in five years as a result. This floors Shcherbina, who had assumed that Legasov's willingness to stay meant that it was safe to, not that Legasov had already accepted an early death out of a sense of duty, and suddenly has to grapple with the notion himself.
* In the ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' episode "The Sign of Three", Sherlock realises that someone in the building intends to commit murder but once he figures out whom they intend to kill and how, he regretfully informs the living victim that they’ve already been murdered. [[spoiler:Due to the method of murder, however (a thin blade unobtrusively inserted into the victim’s torso through a tight belt), all the man has to do is not take his belt off to prevent bleeding out and to seek medical attention. He survives.]]

** In the Season 2 episode [[Recap/BabylonFiveS02E11AllAloneInTheNight "All Alone in the Night"]], Sheridan and a couple of RedShirts are out flying in their Starfuries when they're attacked by an unknown alien ship. One of the the Red Shirt Starfuries is destroyed, the other is damaged, and Sheridan is captured. After the aliens leave, Ramirez, the surviving Red Shirt, asks his onboard computer for a damage report, and learns that his ship's reactor is leaking radiation. He asks how long before it reaches lethal exposure, and the computer replies, ''"Radiation already at terminal levels."'' He's just barely able to fly back to the station and warn them before he expires.
** In the series finale, [[Recap/BabylonFiveS05E22SleepingInLight "Sleeping in Light"]], [[spoiler: Sheridan reaches the end of the [[YourDaysAreNumbered 20 years of life]] that Lorien was able to give back to him after he died at Z'ha'dum. Sheridan feels his remaining time beginning to run out while he still has a few days left, so he meets with several of his surviving friends to say his goodbyes, then heads off into space one last time.]]
* In ''Series/PowerRangersOperationOverdrive'', Kamdor, one of several major {{Big Bad}}s, and Black Ranger Will charge at each other, and strike in passing. Will falls, and Kamdor, thinking he's won, turns to leave... and then goes kaflooey. Will pulls himself to his feet a little later.

** ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'': The title character's [[SuperMode Hyper Muteki]][[note]]Invincible[[/note]] form has a FinishingMove that strikes the opponent multiple times, seemingly with no effect...and then a few seconds later all those hits catch up with them and they get launched into the air like a rag doll. Ex-Aid even paraphrases the TropeNamer's {{Catchphrase}} at one point.
--> '''Ex-Aid''': (after landing a FinishingMove) The game is already over.

* In ''Series/UltramanTiga'', Tiga and [[EvilCounterpart Evil Tiga]] have a midair attack exchange. Tiga falls to his knees, causing Evil Tiga to turn and laugh before suddenly clutching his chest in pain and falling to the ground. While it doesn't kill him in the series, it gives Tiga the opportunity to finish him. In ''Ultraman Fighting Evolution 3'', this is how he kills him, due to Tiga [[AdaptationalBadass actually winning]] their BeamOWar (and depleting Evil Tiga's remaining health) here, unlike in the show.
* ''Series/UltramanX'' has a nonverbal example when Franchise/UltramanZero has a clash between his Miracle Zero Sluggers and Alien Nackle Bandero's gun. Bandero gets cocky because he landed a blow on Zero, [[TorsoWithAView until he notices that there are openings in his shadow.]]
* ''Series/UltramanTaiga'' sees a SingleStrokeBattle between Ultraman Fuma's Trenchant-Star Light Wave Shuriken and a sword used by an [[Series/UltramanLeo Alien Babalou.]] A couple seconds after their clash, Fuma says, "You were too slow!" as the alien dies to his attack.

'''Mook:''' ...what...do you want to know?\\

* On the ''Series/HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'' episode "Subway", a man is pushed into the path of a subway train and winds up lodged beneath the car from the waist down. Medics rush to the scene, but quickly realize there's nothing they can do to prevent him from bleeding out internally as soon as the train's weight is removed. Needless to say, the pinned man is not pleased with this prognosis.
* An episode of ''Series/QuincyME'' hinged on the killer using the "Dim Mak" quivering-palm technique -- he could "program" his victim to die at a specific later time just by setting up vibrations in the victim's body.
* In one episode of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', the Scoobies (minus Buffy) are fighting a vampire. Spike gets in a few blows, then pulls back and lights up a cigarette. Giles, currently pinned to a fence by the vampire, calls out for help. Spike replies "I already did." We then see that Spike [[KillItWithFire lit the vampire on fire already]], and it just took a few seconds for the flames to grow. The vampire screams and turns to dust.
* In ''Series/GameOfThrones'', Khal Drogo delivers this to Mago during their fight and giving a BadassBoast about what will happen after Mago is dead, just before cutting his throat open with his own weapon, reaching into the wound, and ripping his tongue out.
-->'''Mago:''' First you have to kill me!
-->'''Drogo:''' I already have.
* One of Daniel Jackson's many, ''many'' deaths on ''Series/StargateSG1'' involved this. Pulling from the Real Life example of radiation poisoning below, Daniel was exposed to a very lethal dose of really bad radiation, and the rest of the episode was about knowing that he would die, basically no matter what anyone did.
* Early on in the ''Series/StargateUniverse'' episode "Alliances", Wray and Greer seek out the crashed Lucian Alliance ship in order to disarm the naquadria bomb set to destroy Washington D.C. The bodies they're in take a massive dose of radiation, so Senator Michaels and Dr. Covel, the owners of the bodies, are already dead. Once Senator Michaels learns that she is dead, she devotes her remaining time to learning to disarm the bomb so she can save the city.
* In ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' episode "The Light Brigade", a human fleet makes a last-ditch effort to destroy [[ReptilianConspiracy the reptilians]] against who they are waging a desperate (and losing) war. However, one of the crewmen aboard the flagship is TheMole, and the enemy ambushes the fleet, destroying all ships but the flagship. Only a few crewmen are left alive on the flagship. Each crewman has a patch on the chest that displays a color indicator, which detects the levels of radiation. The crewmembers are horrified to discover that the indicator is black, which signifies a lethal dose of radiation. They don't have long.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Happens to the victims of the Weeping Angels if they're sent far enough into the past. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in that the victim lives out the remainder of their natural life; victims "live to death" in the past while the Angels [[AbstractEater feed on the days never lived in the present]].
* Season 3 of ''Series/{{Eagleheart}}'' features an episode involving "lagging", the art of slicing a person in half in such a way that they don't immediately fall apart. [[spoiler:In the final episode, Chris reveals that he had been lagging Brett/Satan for almost a year.]]
* ''Series/BlakesSeven'' had an example of this in the form of a gun which caused some sort of molecular instability or something. Victims were shot, but they would not die until the instability was triggered. At one point, a huge beast of some sort is shot and someone asks why it isn't dying. The scientist replies that he hasn't told it it was dead yet.
* Used as a boast by a hitman in an episode of ''Series/{{Kojak}}'': The hitman says his target doesn't die when he pulls the trigger, but when he accepts the contract. [[spoiler:Which makes things go awry when he misses a particular target: The attempted murder scared the victim into paying his debt to the contractor, who now wants to cancel the contract. In response, hitman mentions his boast and refuses to "resurrect" the victim for a personal reason he doesn't disclose. When the contractor threatens to ruin his reputation over it, the hitman kills him and sets out to complete the contract.]]
* The Series/TalesFromTheCrypt episode ''[[Recap/TalesFromTheCryptS5E3ForeverAmbergris Forever Ambergris]]'' centers on two combat photographers sent out to a Central American country hit with a weaponized virus, with one photographer ending up contracting it (as the other planned, as he wanted to kill the other out of jealousy over his photography skills and his smoking hot wife). Here's a free piece of advice if you ever come across that village like he does [[spoiler:and the other photographer does courtesy of the dead man's wife getting payback]]: if you contract that virus, just say goodbye and shoot yourself then and there. There is '''''no''''' saving you.

* Creator/DavidLangford's ''fractal basilisks'' infect the human mind with [[BrownNote an image it cannot process]], producing this effect. In the short story "BLIT," a vandal is HoistByHisOwnPetard when he accidentally looks at a stencil of "The Parrot" while using [[GogglesDoSomething protective goggles]] (the cops who arrest him die instantly). The effect doesn't kick in until later, and can only be countered with [[WhatDidIDoLastNight strong drink]] to ensure short-term memory loss.

* Acetaminophen (aka Paracetamol and Tylenol) overdose, which works by causing large amounts of a toxic metabolite called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAPQI NAPQI]] to build up in the liver. Normally, the liver should be able to immediately detoxify this compound by metabolising it again, but if the liver is overwhelmed by an overdose of acetaminophen, it is unable to carry out this process, and the accumulating NAPQI eventually results in critical liver damage that enters acute liver failure. A sizeable number of suicide victims have attempted to kill themselves by overdosing on Paracetamol/Tylenol tablets, only to find that instead of dying quickly, they are subject to an extremely painful death that takes several days to finally take them. The only treatment if the poisoning is caught too late is to receive a liver transplant, though many people who would have survived have unfortunately died because no transplant was available for them.

** This actually happened to some Holocaust victims shortly after being released from concentration camps.

** Same if you're scratched by a cat. Its clawing may be painless or nearly so at first… until seconds later, when you see blood where it cut you accompanied by pain. Likewise with paper cuts.

** Similarly, a severe cut with a sharp enough blade will often be painless initially because it cleanly severs the nerve endings. The pain doesn't come until a while later as the cut starts to heal. Microtome blades for taking microscopic samples (one of the closest things reality has to a blade SharpenedToASingleAtom) are infamous for this kind of cut, going straight through the glove and only being noticed by the thin trail of blood. This can also often be observed with ordinary papercuts; the pain comes later, when salt from the environment or your own sweat gets into the cut, and later when your immune system moves in to inflame the area to help it get rid of any pesky bacteria that might have slipped in.

** Similarly, a severe cut with a sharp enough blade will often be painless initially because it cleanly severs the nerve endings. The pain doesn't come until a while later as the cut starts to heal. Microtome blades for taking microscopic samples (one of the closest things reality has to a blade SharpenedToASingleAtom) are infamous for this kind of cut, going straight through the glove and only being noticed by the thin trail of blood.

* Said almost verbatim in ''Burning Hell'' - a VillainProtagonist DeadlyDoctor can use this trope with his sword... for FlayingAlive his opponent. Same Mad Scientist also created a serum that, when injected into the bloodstream, speeds up your senses so much that the world around you moves to the point of time almost standing still. By the time you feel the blade piercing your heart and killing you, the rest of your body has already been shut down for a few years or so.

*** If Mangle makes it into your office, it becomes a matter of not if, but ''when'' you die. She'll hang around on the ceiling, watching for just the right moment to swoop in for the kill.

* ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' did this in an odd way. The heroes' health is tracked by an odometer-style rolling display that scrolls downward when damage is taken. Even if you take lethal damage, you won't die until it rolls down to zero, making it possible to survive if you get off a healing effect or finish the battle in time.

* ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' webcomic ''Webcomic/TheChosenFour'' subverted this in a very funny way, doing a ShoutOut to ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar''. TheHero Ness is lost inside a dungeon and getting angrier, more upset and more frustrated every second. A {{Mook}} tries to harass him, and he replies by telling "No. YOU listen. You are already dead", suddenly looking right like Kenshiro. It is subverted because Ness had not actually done anything -yet-, but the {{Mook}} got so scared -wondering if he was dead and he was now a ghost- that he answered Ness' question.

* A serious and potentially fatal condition known as an aortic dissection, which started garnering attention in 2003 when one claimed the life of actor Creator/JohnRitter and, more recently, from the death of Creator/KentaroMiura in 2021. The symptoms can be confused with other more common events like a heart attack or stroke, meaning the correct diagnosis may come too late. [[https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/aortic-dissection/symptoms-causes/syc-20369496 As described by the Mayo Clinic]]:

Compare DelayedReaction for the comedy version. ExactlyWhatIAimedAt has a similarly delayed effectiveness but is usually less fatal. May lead to DiedStandingUp. See {{Determinator}} or HeroicSecondWind for when it doesn't work, and also beware of NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow. May be invoked with a DiagonalCut, as previously stated. Can overlap with BadassBoast. A subtrope of TimeDelayedDeath. Not to be confused with DeadAllAlong or DeadToBeginWith.

* [[http://imgur.com/gallery/cCCeizL This]] NSFW parody of ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar''.

* In ''VideoGame/Shinobi2002'' and its sequel ''VideoGame/NightshadeKunoichi'', Hotsuma and Hibana, respectively, can attack multiple enemies in a chain, and after the chain attack is completed, they all [[LudicrousGibs fall to pieces]]. This is actually a gameplay mechanic: Each successive kill in the chain boosts the damage of your attacks while it's active, and ending an enemy encounter with a sufficiently long chain attack rewards you with a mini cutscene and double ''yin'' orbs.

* In the 2003 ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist'' anime, [[MadBomber Kimblee's]] favourite trick is to use alchemy to [[WhyAmITicking turn people into delayed time bombs]] by transmuting their bodies' sulphur and phosphorous into a slow-oxidising explosive. [[spoiler:He eventually does this to Al.]]

->''"He hits you with his fingertips at five different pressure points on your body. And then he lets you walk away. But once you’ve taken five steps, your heart explodes in your body, and you fall to the floor, dead."''

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'':
** This applies to the door/light switches being disabled by Bonnie or Chica and you have the monitor up (keeping it down runs the risk of Foxy getting to you), or the power going out, UNLESS you are near the end of your shift and [[LuckBasedMission luck is on your side]].
** If you have your camera screen up, and start hearing a sound like a dying man wheezing, ''don't lower that screen''. Or do, at least you'll see it coming. On that note, if you hear a [[HellIsThatNoise sound like the clopping of a horse's hooves sped up]] in your office, you are also very dead - it means Bonnie or Chica is inside your office, waiting to kill you next time you check your monitors.
** If you run out of power, you might as well just take off your headphones and stop doing anything; [[ControllableHelplessness you can still move around]], and ''might'' win the night if you're ''really'' close to 6 AM and the RNG is being merciful, but for the most part you're just waiting for Freddy to stop playing ''Les Toreadors'' and jumpscare you already.

* In ''VideoGame/Goldeneye1997'', ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'', and ''Perfect Dark Zero'', enemies killed with grenades or other explosives may stand still for a second before being BlownAcrossTheRoom.