History Main / DeadToBeginWith

* ''Film/TheCrow'' movies always involve the main character coming back from the dead to avenge their own death and that of the people they love.

* ''Film/Ghost1990'': Begins with Sam and Molly moving into their new apartment and renovating it. As they go out for a stroll one evening, they are mugged, but Sam gets killed trying to defend him and Molly, and as the story progresses, he finds a psychic that can talk to the dead, and also finds out that [[MakeItLookLikaAnAccident his (former) best friend orchestrated the mugging]] in an attempt to get the password to his work computer.

* ''VideoGame/ChildOfLight opens with Aurora's illness and death, then [[Isekai awakening in Lemuria]], described in poetic form:

* ''Literature/{{Elsewhere}}'' by Gabrielle Zevin -- Liz is hit by a car at the beginning. She wakes up on a boat not knowing where she is. She is going to Elsewhere (a.k.a. Heaven), where you age backwards until you are a baby and then you are reincarnated.

* Sissel from ''VideoGame/GhostTrick''. And Ray, who we first meet as a ghost possessing a lamp. And Yomiel.

* ''ComicBook/EarthX'' features dead characters from the MarvelUniverse fighting each other in the "Realm of the Dead". They're unaware of their deaths and believe those who are actually still alive are the dead ones. Little is done with this in the original, but ''[[ComicBook/EarthX Universe X]]'' is about the war to kill the [[GrimReaper personification of Death]] so that the deceased can build a heaven, while ''[[ComicBook/EarthX Paradise X]]'' is about the problems inherent in that heaven (and the search for [[DeathSeeker the suffering living to find a new way to die]]). Yes, these are very odd books.

* ''Everlost'' by Neal Shustermann -- Nick and Allie die when their respective cars collide. They become Afterlights, which is when the souls of children (ages 5-15) don't get to where they were going, because they lack the sense of direction needed. Afterlights roam the earth until the end of time, but they can be sucked into the center on the earth when they stand on living ground.
* Variant in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': The [[Literature/WeeFreeMen Nac mac Feegle]] believe that ''this'' world is their Valhalla, thus explaining their riotous behaviour as they've already got to paradise[[note]]They still feel bad about Feegles who die, because it means they have to go back to the "World of the Living" for a while[[/note]]. In ''Literature/ReaperMan'', Windle Poons' storyline concerns his posthumous experiences as a zombie.

* In ''{{Manga/Gantz}}'', an alien sphere kidnaps the souls of people who have just died, gives them new [[CloningBlues cloned bodies]], outfits them with futuristic battle suits and high-tech weaponry, and forces them to battle monsters and aliens that secretly live among humans. If the hunters are killed by their prey (which happens frequently), they [[KilledOffForReal stay dead]] unless other players pay the Gantz sphere to "resurrect" them by making new clones - again.

Sometimes, the end of the road is only the beginning. Well, it is if the cast is [[TitleDrop Dead to Begin With.]]