History Main / AfterlifeAntechamber

* In ''WesternAnimation/Soul'', the souls of people who've recently died ride a conveyor belt to the Great Beyond, depicted as [[GoIntoTheLight a bright light]] in a dark void.

* The afterlife as described in ''Manga/FirePunch'' is ultimately this: you die, you end up in a movie theater, you watch your life unfold on screen, then move on.

* ''WebVideo/PuppetHistory'' features this as the twist of their 2021 ''Holiday Spectacular!''. [[spoiler:All of the puppets from Seasons 1 through 4 have recently been KilledOffscreen, and the giant theater that they're holding The Professor's funeral in (as well as the areas where they've been creating television content) are constructions God made to distract them from that fact. They're really there because God and Satan don't know how to accurately judge puppet souls yet, so they let them mess around for a while until they come up with a solution.]]

* ''WebOriginal/PuppetHistory'' features this as the twist of their 2021 ''Holiday Spectacular!''. [[spoiler:All of the puppets from Seasons 1 through 4 have recently been KilledOffscreen, and the giant theater that they're holding The Professor's funeral in (as well as the areas where they've been creating television content) are constructions God made to distract them from that fact. They're really there because God and Satan don't know how to accurately judge puppet souls yet, so they let them mess around for a while until they come up with a solution.]]

* ''WebOriginal/PupperHistory'' features this as the twist of their 2021 ''Holiday Spectacular!''. [[spoiler:All of the puppets from Seasons 1 through 4 have recently been KilledOffscreen, and the giant theater that they're holding The Professor's funeral in (as well as the areas where they've been creating television content) are constructions God made to distract them from that fact. They're really there because God and Satan don't know how to accurately judge puppet souls yet, so they let them mess around for a while until they come up with a solution.]]

* This turns out to be the setting in the ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'' episode "The View From Halfway Down", where [=BoJack=] encounters several deceased characters that had some connection to him in a warped version of his childhood home as he comes to terms with the fact he's dying... sort of. It's played with, because it's explicitly just a DyingDream that is only happening in [=BoJack's=] head, as well as the indication that there is no afterlife; [[CessationOfExistence nothing comes next]].

* ''Literature/RainbowBridge'' is a poem that tells of a place called "Rainbow Bridge" that acts as purgatory for pets. They wait until their owner has died so they can both go into heaven together.

[[quoteright:320:[[Film/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/harrydead2.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:320:[-"I think you could [[AfterlifeExpress board a train]] if you were so inclined."\\

** Modern prophets of {{UsefulNotes/Mormonism}} teach that this anteroom for spirits is to give the righteous spirits a chance to teach the other spirits, letting them have a chance to repent before judgment.

** Modern prophets of {{Mormonism}} teach that this anteroom for spirits is to give the righteous spirits a chance to teach the other spirits, letting them have a chance to repent before judgment.

** Modern prophets of Mormonism teach that this anteroom for spirits is to give the righteous spirits a chance to teach the other spirits, letting them have a chance to repent before judgment.

** Modern prophets of UsefulNotes/Mormonism teach that this anteroom for spirits is to give the righteous spirits a chance to teach the other spirits, letting them have a chance to repent before judgment.

** Modern prophets of [[UsefulNotes/Mormonism The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] teach that this anteroom for spirits is to give the righteous spirits a chance to teach the other spirits, letting them have a chance to repent before judgment.

** Modern prophets of [[Notes/Mormonism The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] teach that this anteroom for spirits is to give the righteous spirits a chance to teach the other spirits, letting them have a chance to repent before judgment.

** Modern prophets of [[UsefulNotes/Mormonism The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] teach that this anteroom for spirits is to give the righteous spirits a chance to teach the other spirits, letting them have a chance to repent before judgment.

One way of handling it is to divide the afterlife into sections; this here's the bit you're in immediately after you die, which is somewhat familiar. Over there is the afterlife proper, which we're not going to talk about. The story only concerns itself with the nearest part of the afterlife; when characters move on to the afterlife proper (often by [[GoIntoTheLight Going Into The Light]]), they exit the story. OnlyMostlyDead is relatively easy to fix if the soul is still in the chamber. Once it moves on, it's most likely impossible.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' has one of these, described as "between realms". It has been shown twice in the show: [[spoiler:once in Volume 6, where the God of Light resurrects Ozma and gives him his task of uniting the second wave of humanity, and again in Volume 8, where Penny passes the Winter Maiden's powers over to Winter]].

* ''Manga/DailyLifeWithMonsterGirl'': Lala is a Dullahan who can access the Afterlife Antechamber at will. She first became interested in the protagonist because he kept showing up there (due to the AmusingInjuries inflicted on him by the other monster girls), only to repeatedly recover and come back to life. Later in the series, she puts this to practical use by knocking him unconscious whenever she wants to have a private conversation with him.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

The trouble with writing about the afterlife is that it's [[Theatre/{{Hamlet}} the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns]]. How do you write about something that nobody who is alive has ever seen, nobody who is dead can explain, and that might not be comprehensible to a living person?

* Cafe Ahnenerbe was depicted as this in ''Anime/KaraNoKyoukai'' with Shiki and Tomoe going their separate ways; one to life, one to death.

* TD mistakenly thinks he's ended up here in ''FanFic/TheNonBronyverse'' story ''TD the Alicorn Princess'', after he gets blasted by the Elements of Harmony. However, it turns out that Celestia can actually escort him there if he desires, to which he rather quickly declines.