Everybody's got to die. Some would say it doesn't matter how you die, but there's still some pretty fucked-up ways to go.
- Being eaten by a Hyena.
They say a Hyena will eat you while you're still alive, it'll tear your skin off and eat your innards while your're still awake and screaming. Would you feel it if your intestines were being chewed on? Getting air or blood in your abdominal cavity is very painful, what about when it's your own faeces in there? Maybe they don't really do that, but it'd sure be a bad way to die.
- Drowning in a tar pit.
Viscous, filthy tar fills your lungs and mouth, you can taste it; it's burning your eyes and you can hardly move because it's so thick. There'd be no way out, you couldn't tread tar or swim to solid ground. If you got your head above the surface, you wouldn't be able to breathe, because you'd have the equivalent of a hundred-thousand cigarettes down your trachea. You'd pass out after a few minutes, but those would be some terrible minutes.
- Suicide.
The death itself might not be so bad (depending on your method of choice), but how horrible would a situation have to be to drive someone to suicide? The anticipation would be palpable, as you write your suicide note and prepare to throw your life away.
- Immolation.
How long 'till you'd die, or at least pass out? Would it be when the flames start cooking your brain? You wouldn't be able to breathe because the fire would be using all of the oxygen, but that'd be the least of your concerns. Even if someone managed to put out the fire, you'd have months (maybe years) of skin grafts and terrible pain to look forward to. Or you would quite likely acquire an infection and die then instead.
- Being left in a room with no way out and all the water you can drink.
Survival manuals say you can survive up to three weeks without food, but only three days without water. So now you aren't afforded the privilege of a relatively quick death, you must sit around and starve for three weeks with nothing to do and no hope whatsoever.
- The Iron Maiden.
A seriously fucked-up medieval invention, 'nuff said.
- Bleeding to death on the operating table before anaesthetics were invented.
Remember those old cartoon pirates with a peg leg? They had their legs sawn off while they were conscious and without painkillers, after which the remaining stub of their leg was dipped in hot tar. What if you bled to death in the process, as I'm sure a lot of them did? That's a bad way to die, slowly slipping out of consciousness (which I'm sure you wouldn't object to) while all you can feel is pain. "I can't feel my toes!"; that's because they're on the bench next to you, Blackbeard.
- Impaled by a garden ornament.
This one's not so much bad, but just fucked up. My mum knew a woman who died this way, she fainted while gardening and fell onto a particularly sharp gnome. Imagine the shock of the person who finds the body, with a garden gnome's hat sticking out of their chest, a trowel still in their now-stiff hand? That's fucked up.
- Being eaten alive by ants.
Imagine a whole army of the little things crawling all over you and into every orifice they can find; they'd be going up your nose, into your ears, down your throat and behind your eyeballs. Perhaps you've been paralysed by some evil henchmen, perhaps you've been buried up to your neck by some evil henchmen, who can know such things? Whatever the cause, how could you fight back against a thousand tiny ants?
Thanks to BookReader for this one.
- Chewed up by a woodchipper.
How many people have been killed by these ridiculously dangerous things? It'd chew up your legs and abdomen, you'd see your muscles and bones being ground and chopped into a slurry beneath you. Maybe the chewier bits of you would clog the machine, so at best you'd be left with ragged stumps for legs. If your arm got caught first, though, your head would be pulled in rather quickly... Not nice.
Thanks to shaogo for this one, his wu goes into more detail on this subject, including accounts of people who've been killed in the aforementioned way.