History Main / LivingOnBorrowedTime

** Unexpectedly with [[spoiler:Naomi]], who had been suffering from terminal cancer for years and [[spoiler:only kept the appearance of being healthy and staying alive with nanomachines in her body. When she thinks her part in stoping Ocelot is done, she shuts the system off and dies.]]

* In ''Literature/TheWitchlands'', Merik mysteriously survives a bomb that went off right next to him. It eventually turns out that that's because [[spoiler:he's still connected to his [[BloodBrothers Threadbrother]] Kullen, who's Cleaved, making him almost invincible. Kullen warns Merik that the prince will live only as long as the Thread between them still exists.]]

** [[spoiler: Elika]] is living on borrowed time in ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia2008''.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': [[spoiler:Emperor Belos is a 400 year-old human, who keeps himself alive by consuming the life essence of Palismen. However, this is not a perfect solution -- he has to keep consuming more Palismen, because if he ever stops, he'll transform into a horrible, rotting, skeletal beast, before his body falls apart and he eventually dies. He's eventually forced to switch to possessing and consuming various woodland animals and ''Hunter'' after he's trapped in the human realm and his Palisman-access is cut off, though this does not give him ''nearly'' enough energy to sustain himself for long. Throughout season 3 his body is visibly falling apart as his limbs keep breaking off, and by the end, he's reduced to a skull floating in a puddle of necrotic ooze, unable to fight back as Eda, Raine and King stomp him to death.]]

* [[spoiler:Yuko Ichihara]] of ''Manga/XxxHolic'' technically died several hundred years ago, but a [[RealityWarper reality warp]] put that on "hold" for a while. She undid the warp that was keeping her alive as payment to let two [[CloningBlues clones]] into the cycle of reincarnation, and all was as if her death had occurred originally, except for a few people with RippleEffectProofMemory.

** [[spoiler:Kirei Kotomine]] from the same route had his heart destroyed two days before he finally died, [[spoiler:and it was only the fact his time ran out before Shirou's that Shirou was even able to win their fight and destroy the Grail]]. In the original story, the only justifications are [[ViewersAreGeniuses vague hints]], but if ''LightNovel/FateZero'''s explanation is to be trusted, [[spoiler: he "died" about a decade before that, and actually spent the entirety of Fate/stay/night [[OurLichesAreDifferent preserved magically]] by the Grail's power.]]

* The Creator/HPLovecraft short story ''Literature/CoolAir'' features Dr. Muñoz, a pleasant but [[UncannyValley subtly repulsive]] man who never leaves his frigid apartment. When the cooling unit breaks down, it's revealed that Dr. Muñoz died 18 years previously but managed to sustain himself through unknown means, relying on refrigeration to keep himself from rotting away.

* In ''Literature/FateStrangeFake'', True Archer is near-fatally stabbed with a dagger laced in Hydra venom. Due to his legend, this is even more catastrophically horrible than normal (since [[spoiler:being poisoned with Hydra venom was how Alcides, better known as Heracles, originally died]]) though he succeeds in using his King's Order to save himself with Chiron's immortality. However, the venom is still in him, and he has only a few days before the pain drives him to insanity.

* Burai of ''Series/KyoryuSentaiZyuranger''. His days were numbered- literally. He already died once before the events of the series when his sleep chamber collapsed while he was still inside during his suspended animation, but Clotho, the Spirit of Life, revived him to assist the Zyurangers, but only for a limited period. Burai's remaining time was represented by a flickering green candle that would gradually melt down with each passing hour and the only way Burai could preserve his limited lifespan was by staying inside a "lapseless room". Because of this, Burai would only get out of his room to assist the Zyurangers whenever they seriously needed him. The longer Burai would stay outside his room, the less time he had left to live. [[spoiler:Witch Bandora ultimately realizes this and is able to destroy the "lapseless room" and force Burai's death, but not before he gives his younger brother Geki his gear.]]
** When he came back, Tommy, the [[Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers American equivalent]], knew he had only a few morphs before he would [[SparedByTheAdaptation lose his powers]].

* A major theme in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'', most prominently with Snake who is dying from accelerated aging not due to him being an imperfect clone but [[spoiler:the doctors intentionally shortening his life span before he was born so that the enemy won't use him]]. He had always believed that there would be no normal life for him, but now he still has to stop Ocelot before he can die.

* [[PlayerCharacter V]] in ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'' winds up in this situation by way of sticking the Arasaka Relic in their head and then getting [[BoomHeadshot shot in the head by Dexter [=DeShawn=] after the Heist for that very same biochip goes straight to hell, resulting in them sharing headspace with a long-dead rockerboy whose engram is slowly overwriting their consciousness. [[spoiler:Even after separating themselves from Johnny, V turns out to still have only six months to live due to the Relic having altered them so far that the body they have is now essentially Johnny]].

[[quoteright:300:[[ComicBook/IronMan https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Iron_Man_origin_3548.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Over 50 years on, and [[LongRunners he's still going]].]]

** In ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind Golden Wind]]'', this is LITERALLY the case for [[spoiler:Bruno Bucciarati after fighting Diavolo’s King Crimson and being revived by Giorno]]. He isn’t so much “brought back to life” as he is a RevenantZombie... his body doesn’t heal, he feels no pain and it’s slowly falling apart. But the absolute worst part? [[spoiler:Bruno was aware of this the entire time but held it back to not upset the gang]]. He’s fully aware that he’s slowly breaking down and that eventually he’ll die for real... a very rare instance where the one on borrowed time is DeadAllAlong.

** In the first book of the ''Literature/ThousandSons'' trilogy, Ahriman gets shot with a SilverBullet. The resulting shrapnel can’t be removed and will kill him once it reaches his hearts, forcing him to constantly [[MasterOfYourDomain harden and heal]] the flesh around the shrapnel in an effort to slow it down and delay the inevitable. [[spoiler:The shrapnel reaches his hearts at the climax of ''Ahriman: Unchanged'', but the reality-warping magic of the second Rubric purges the shrapnel from Ahriman’s body before it can kill him.]]

* ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'': [[spoiler: Vax'ildan]] is killed in episode 102, but [[spoiler: makes a deal with his patron, the Raven Queen, to be temporarily brought back as a [[RevenantZombie revenant]], allowing him to continue in Vox Machina's quest to seal Vecna away. After his defeat, Vax must return to the Raven Queen's side in her domain.]]

* In ''Literature/FateStrangeFake'', True Archer is near-fatally stabbed with a dagger laced in Hydra venom. Due to his legend, this is even more catastrophically horrible than normal (since [[spoiler:being poisoned with Hydra venom was how Heracles originally died]]) though he succeeds in using his King's Order to save himself with Chiron's immortality. However, the venom is still in him, and he has only a few days before the pain drives him to insanity.

* In ''Literature/FateStrangeFake'', True Archer is near-fatally stabbed with a dagger laced in Hydra venom. Due to his legend, this is even more catastrophically horrible than normal (since [[spoiler:being poisoned with Hydra venom-tainted blood was how Heracles died in the original myths]]) though he succeeds in using his King's Order to save himself with Chiron's immortality. However, the venom is still in him, and he has only a few days before the pain drives him to insanity.

* In ''Literature/FateStrangeFake'', True Archer is near-fatally stabbed with a dagger laced in Hydra venom. Due to his legend, this is even more catastrophically horrible than normal, though he succeeds in using his King's Order to save himself with Chiron's immortality. However, the venom is still in him, and he has only a few days before the pain drives him to insanity.

* ''ComicBook/TheTwelve'' reveals this to be the case with Marvel Mind Excello, a telepath with superhuman intelligence. His powers come from the shrapnel of a [[ILoveNuclearPower radioactive isotope]] that has been lodged in his brain, and the shards burrow a little further in every time he uses his powers, meaning that it's only a matter of time before they kill him.

* An odd case occurs in poem ''Dialysis'', where the [[IllGirl subject]] is being kept alive by machines and, because of this, she can't die (the machines will restart her functions the moment they stop), so she counts down to when the machines will no longer work, in which case, if the machines "die", so will she.