Same sentiments. I always play DiD, early on whenever I hear those dog barking I make a mad dash to the closest door or guard. Though on occasions I've found myself glitched through the floor and dying... or glitched through a rock on top of a mountain and ended up ragdolling through the floor and dying due to fall damage on those occasions I chalk that up as my characters having a bad dream and reloading.
DiD is also the main reason why Become Ethereal is my de facto favorite shout, can't be too careful.
You don't, that is the whole point of dark souls, you are undead, cursed with eternal life, immortality. when something takes your life from you, you don't end, your cursed flesh persists, and you are revived beside a bonfire, the only place where the undead may rest.
there are many ways to interpret why you are there and why you're undead, my favorite one is the following:
undeath, and hollowing, comes from the absence of humanity, those who did not posses it in the first place can not be cursed with the immortality, the dark sign that brands the undead. Humanity itself is not seen as a pure thing, it is instead pure blackness, the abyss itself, the giants that acquired the power of the first flame shunned the humans and placed them below because they were created from the abyss, by the pygmy.
the undead were hunted down by the giants and the other humans because of their curse, and were made captive in the asylum of the north. where they await the end of the world. this however is broken when a prophecy is born, a calling which makes the undead go to Lordran, the land of ancient lords, the beings who call themselves the gods and rule over the humans below them.
there are many interpretations to this as well, but the belief of the majority of the community is that the prophecy was created by Velka, the ancient godess of sin. to punish the Lords for a sin they committed, and there punishment will be the ones the shunned in the past, those immortal beings they locked up, to end their age of fire, and begin the dark age of man...
Sounds cool how they've done it. It would be cool if in Skyrim the first time you died you awoke in Sovengarde and there was a minor questline to free yourself (you can only escape because your dragonborn) and then every time you died after that you had contacts in sovengarde who would yet again help you escape as they want to see Alduin destroyed.
But with Dark Souls, I'm really torn between if i should buy it or not, I'm mostly saving my money for The Divison, The Witcher 3, Dragon Age I and Watchdogs... and thats alot of money, so I'm thinking of watching a walkthrough on youtube to familiarise myself with the story for when Dark Souls 3 comes out, (i think i read it comes out this year)