History Main / AfterlifeAntechamber

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': Mac is in one in "[[Recap/CSINYS08E18 Near Death]]" that looks a lot like the lab.

!!'''As a DeathTrope, all Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.'''

* In ''Literature/RememberMe'', the newly dead hang around invisibly in the land of the living until they're ready to move on. The narrator is dictating her story to a living person just before she moves on herself, so she has not yet learned, and thus can't reveal, what happens next.

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E69ThePassersby The Passersby]]", a long column of dead Confederate soldiers walk past a mansion on the way to their final destination. The mansion's owner, a former slave owner, decides to join with the column after meeting the last man walking along: UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E84TheHunt The Hunt]]", a man dies and ends up on the Eternity Road. He's told about the two possible destinations, Heaven and Hell, but you never actually see them.

* In the first episode of ''Second Chance'', Charles Russell dies and goes to be judged; he's found too bad for Heaven and too good for Hell. He is given the opportunity to go back to earth and try to give his teenage self a nudge in the right direction -- a "second chance", if you will.

* ''Literature/WitchAndWizard'': The shadowland is a realm that connects the entire world of the living. It is where half lights, people who are not dead and not alive, live. The half lights can come out of the shadowlands, but if they stay out to long, they will fade away. If you get lost in the shadowlands as a human, you become a zombie-like creature. If you die by magic, you can go back if the one who killed you is murdered. There is a river that brings you further, but the bridge is broken. The river is uncrossable [[spoiler:until the third book, ''The Fire'', in which Whit repairs the bridge]].

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%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/harrydead2.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[-"I think you could [[AfterlifeExpress board a train]] if you were so inclined."\\
"And where would it take me?"\\
"''On.''"-]]]

%% Caption selected per above IP thread. Please do not replace or remove without discussion here:
%% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900

* The Afterlife in ''Anime/AngelBeats'' is in fact an antechamber created for the souls of children who died feeling unfulfilled so that they can leave behind their regrets and fears and move on. People who do so disappear, and it's never made quite clear where they go, but it wouldn't be at all unreasonable to assume that they are going to the "true" afterlife, whatever that may be. Another conclusion is that they're reincarnated. [[spoiler:TheStinger supports the latter interpretation]].
* The Hazama ("Great Between") in the Manga incarnation of ''Manga/BlackRockShooter''. The job of the eponymous character is making sure troublesome souls move to afterlife proper, because if they don't, they will nag other souls into their false afterlife. Such false afterlife is usually horrifying, as expected from the troublesome souls.

* People who've just died in ''Manga/{{Gantz}}'' tend to view the hotel room they end up in as an antechamber or waiting room, before they move on to the afterlife. Subverted slightly because no one's actually dead - and assuming they complete the missions laid out before them, they're allowed to return home. [[spoiler:Hardly anyone actually makes it, though.]]

* Cafe Ahnenerbe was depicted as this in ''Literature/TheGardenOfSinners'' with Shiki and Tomoe going their separate ways; one to life, one to death.
* ''Manga/FirePunch'': When Agni asks [[TheMovieBuff Togata]] about the afterlife, he is told you die, you end up in a movie theater, you watch your life unfold on screen, then move on. From that point, several characters are shown doing just that after they (nearly) die, [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane and it's left to our imagination how literal it is]].\\
This leads to one scene where we're introduced to a character in a movie theater, but it turns out [[TomatoSurprise they're still alive]] and in a ''physical'' theater.

* ''ComicBook/{{Blackbird|2018}}'': The night of the big earthquake, Nina has a "dream" where she visits a place called the Grand Oasis Diner, but wakes up the next morning to find [[GoingByTheMatchbook a matchbook from there in her pocket]]. She later discovers that she actually died and was brought back to life that night, partially initiated into being a paragon (magician). All paragons need to visit before [[DeathActivatedSuperpower gaining their powers]].

* In the ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'', there's the spirit realm that exists between the mortal world and the afterlives, Pony Heaven and Pony Hell, which are respectively ruled by (and ''[[GeniusLoci are]]'') [[EldritchAbomination The Father of Alicorns and Havoc]]. The spirits of the recently departed end up here before [[TheGrimReaper Mortis]] or one of his thestral children show up to escort them to their final destination. That said, Mortis is [[DontFearTheReaper nice enough of a guy]] that he'll let good souls stay here to wait for still living loved ones to join them before moving on to Heaven together (like what happened with the G2 Mane Cast and their families). Also, this place doesn't seem to have a fixed appearance -- it defaults as either a void or walking invisible amongst the mortals, or they can recreate realistic copies of places they enjoyed in life to spend time in while waiting.
* 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.
* In the tale ''Strandpiel'' by Creator/AAPessimal, one set of supporting characters is in fact dead. WordOfGod says there was an immediate difficulty in explaining ''why'' they were still hanging on around living members of their family, up to a century after demise. Pessimal chose to explain this as (i) giving them something to do; (ii) the novelty of having a living family member -- a witch -- who they could actually talk to; and (iii) given the disparity between the number of people who are dead and the number actually being born into the world every day, reincarnation is not a given. There is a long, long, waiting list and they're still working their way up it. So looking after the living from the Afterlife gives them something to ''do'' in the meantime.

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]
* ''Film/{{Beetlejuice}}''. The afterlife, being part of the CelestialBureaucracy, has a waiting room where the dead are processed and the waiting time helps them realize that they really are dead.
* ''Film/{{Casper}}''. Being a ghost means that you have unfinished business on Earth; once that's cleared up you go on to the next stage.
* The Creator/AlbertBrooks film ''Film/DefendingYourLife''. You go to Judgment City, where you hang around until it's your turn to look at scenes from your life in front of a tribunal and defend what you did. If you pass you AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence; if you fail you [[{{Reincarnation}} go back and try again in a new life]]. Fail often enough, and they [[CessationOfExistence "throw you away"]].

* ''Film/HereComesMrJordan'' and its remake, ''Film/{{Heaven Can Wait|1978}}''. When Joe Pendleton dies he ends up in a place that looks like a FluffyCloudHeaven but isn't: it's an intermediate stop on the way to Heaven. He eventually gets sent back because it wasn't his time to die.

* ''Film/{{Poltergeist|1982}}''. When some people die they get lost or otherwise fail to GoIntoTheLight and end up haunting the living.

* In ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'', when Rachel dies, she ends up there, and talks to the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Ellimist]] about the events of her life. When she asks what happens next, she is cut off, and the perspective switches to someone else.

* ''Literature/TheCosmere'': When someone dies, their spirit appears in the Cognitive Realm. However, this is ''not'' the land of the dead. There are three Realms: The Physical Realm, the Cognitive Realm, and the Spiritual Realm. Living people exist primarily in the Physical Realm, but parts of them are in all three. So when their physical body is destroyed, they are left as a "cognitive shadow" in the Cognitive Realm until they run out of [[{{Mana}} Investiture]] and are pulled Beyond. People with power (Allomancers and Feruchemists are explicitly confirmed in ''Literature/MistbornSecretHistory'', presumably any magic-user would count) last longer, and people who were Vessels of a [[PiecesOfGod Shard]] for any length of time can remain indefinitely. If you manage to secure yourself against going Beyond, if you're mad enough to do that, there are ways of returning to the Physical Realm.

** In the series, TheGrimReaper comes to take the souls of the dead, but it is never shown where he takes them; if anyone asks, he refuses to give any hints, saying that the only way to find out is to go and see for oneself. Sometimes, the newly-dead will be depicted having a conversation with Death at the place where they were killed, before fading away to wherever they are going; other times, more commonly in later books of the series, the point of view will follow the dead person as they see the world fading around them and find themselves in a vast black desert, which they must cross to reach the afterlife proper (which, in accordance with the trope, is never depicted).

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': In ''Literature/GhostStory'':

* ''Literature/TheGreatDivorce'' by Creator/CSLewis has the Civic Center in the middle of The Grey Town/Hell, the first place that damned souls go after they die. From there, they can choose to remain in Hell so that they can eternally bicker with their neighbors or board a bus to visit the border Heaven and decide whether to accept God's invitation into paradise.
* In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', when Harry Potter dies, he ends up in a cleaner, emptier version of King's Cross Station. It's more or less stated that [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith this is only how it appears to him]], as Dumbledore is surprised when he mentions it aloud. His options are to return, or to go "on", which is not described. There's also the ghosts, who did not cross over either because they had unfinished business or (in Nearly-Headless Nick's case), they were too afraid of what might be waiting on the other side, and are now stuck on Earth for some unspecified amount of time.
* In ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves'', Will Navidson describes a dream of such a place, one that he knows isn't the afterlife but is a, "half-way place." People are allowed to linger there for as long as they wish, but the only way out is to accept judgment, either being taken somewhere else as reward or to plunge through darkness forever as punishment. He confides that, upon waking, he's not sure if he should submit to judgment or not.
* ''Literature/LincolnInTheBardo'': When you die you go into the Bardo. You don't know you are dead at first, but you have to learn and accept that over time. When you stay there for too long, your body parts will enlarge, based on parts of your life. At certain times chariots will come to get them to move on, but the ghosts will think it's a trap.

* In ''Literature/TheNightAngelTrilogy'' after Kylar dies for the first time (and every other time) he wakes up in an antechamber, with only The Wolf for company.

* In Mick Stevens' ''Poodles from Hell'', a [[WillingChanneler dead cartoonist's spirit channels through a living one]] to describe the afterlife. Right after you die you go to rest and think things over in a typical small workplace break room -- couple of tables and chairs, napkin dispenser, coffee and soda machines.

* In ''Remember Me'' by Creator/ChristopherPike, the newly-dead hang around invisibly in the land of the living until they're ready to move on. The narrator of the book is dictating her story to a living person just before she moves on herself, so she has not yet learned, and thus can't reveal, what happens next.
* The Halls of Mandos function like this in ''Literature/TheSilmarillion''--both human and elven (and possibly dwarven and orkish) souls end up here after death, but it's not the ultimate destination for either. Elves arrive in Mandos and remain there for a time (and it can be a very ''long'' time if Mandos feels that they did things worthy of punishment), but eventually reincarnate (though reincarnated elves rarely return to Middle-earth, Glorfindel being one of the only known exceptions). Human souls stay in Mandos briefly, then go... somewhere... else. The fates of the souls of other sentient beings after arriving in the Halls is left uncertain, if they go there at all.

* ''Literature/WitchAndWizard'': The shadowlands. This Is a realm that connects the entire world of the living. It is where half lights, people who are not dead and not alive, live. The half lights can come out of the shadowlands, but if they stay out to long they will fade away. If you get lost in the shadowlands as a human, you become a zombie-like creature. If you die by magic, you can go back if the one who killed you is murdered. There is a river that brings you further, but the bridge is broken. The river is uncrossable. [[spoiler:Until the third book, ''The Fire'', where Whit repairs the bridge.]]

** In Book 7, on Alaalu, death isn't the same as it is everywhere else and the souls of the dead enter into an antechamber located in a magically created mythological center of the planet.

* ''Series/{{Ashes to Ashes|2008}}'' turns out to be a purgatory [[ItMakesSenseInContext created and modeled by Gene Hunt]] specifically for dead police officers who had a premature and traumatic death. The actual heaven and hell are not seen, only their entrances (The Railway Arms for Heaven and a {{Hellevator}} for hell).
* ''Series/BeingHumanUK'': First you go through a door, then there's a hallway (which leads to rooms where people relive their past sins), beyond that there's a few waiting rooms, and then...? Apparently there's "men with sticks" at some point too.
* ''Series/TheCrowStairwayToHeaven'' had one in the form of a bridge where Shelly waited for Eric. When you crossed it you moved on to the afterlife.
* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': Mac was in one in 'Near Death' that looked a lot like the lab.
* ''Series/DueSouth'' called this the Borderlands. It was cold and snowy and a lot like the Canadian tundra in winter. Fraser went there during the time he took a substance that put him into a hibernation type state in "Dead Men Don't Throw Rice."
* In the final season of ''Series/{{Lost}}'', the ending revealed that the flash-sideways alternate universe was actually this.
* ''Series/{{MASH}}'' episode "Follies of the Living - Concerns of the Dead." The ghost of a dead soldier wanders the camp and eventually finds a group of other ghosts traveling along the road to the afterlife. Almost certainly [[strike:a ripoff of]] based on "The Passersby."
* In the first episode of the Fox series ''Series/SecondChance'' Charles Russell dies and goes to be judged; he's found too bad for Heaven and too good for Hell. He is given the opportunity to go back to earth and try to give his teenage self a nudge in the right direction - a "second chance" if you will.

* In ''Steambath'' people with "a story to tell" spend time in a steambath attended by a Puerto Rican attendant named Morty (aka "Morte" or Death) who claims he is really God.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959''
** "The Hunt." A man dies and ends up on the Eternity Road. He's told about the two possible destinations, Heaven and Hell, but you never actually see them.
** "The Passersby." A long column of dead Confederate soldiers walk past a mansion on the way to their final destination. The mansion's owner, a former slave owner, decides to join with the column after meeting the last man walking along: UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln.

* The Underworld in both old and new ''[[TabletopGame/TheWorldOfDarkness World of Darkness]]'' is like this. There's an unknowable afterlife that souls (human ones, anyway) are supposed to go to, but ghosts can loiter around the place indefinitely, and [[TabletopGame/WraithTheOblivion Wraiths]] can scheme against one another to get a place in the hierarchy of the dead. In the old version, it's a place of infinite horrors, in the new, [[LighterAndSofter some part of it are kind of cozy]].

* In ''Theatre/{{Carousel}}'', after Billy dies, he goes to what is explained to be "the back yard of heaven," where stars are hung on a celestial clothesline. He is not permitted to enter there even through the back gate, but he is given the chance to return to earth for one day.

* In ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVIHeirTodayGoneTomorrow'', you can access several stages of it. Namely, a player will most likely see it first upon [[HaveANiceDeath his death]], but in a twist, for a player taking the long path, it's actually possible to come there ''alive'' and [[ChessWithDeath challenge Death]]. You can see several stages, the surface where lost souls wander, along with ghouls, and the Underworld proper leading to Death's throne and the Sea of Souls.

* Ghosts in ''VideoGame/TheSims'' are implied to be in this stage of the afterlife; in the third and fourth games there's an option to "Release to [[http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Netherworld Netherworld]]". In the third game this makes playable ghosts unplayable, and in the fourth game this deletes them from the game.
* ''Videogame/{{Everhood}}:'' The very last room of the game in the Normal ending is the Waiting Room, a large, open space where you can find every character you met in the game one last time. It appears to be the last stop post-death before a soul can truly move on into what appears to be reincarnation, and it's mostly there so you can reconcile with everyone whose [[WhoWantsToLiveForever prolonged, stagnant immortality]] you just had to end.

* The Beach in ''VideoGame/DeathStranding'' is an alternative universe that the Ka (the soul) of dead people passes through before transitioning to the Seam, the definitive afterlife. Generally speaking, the Beach takes on the appearance of a beach of black sand under a grey sky, but Beaches are said to differ between individuals. Sometimes a collective of violent deaths can create a mass Beach, where several Ka are trapped and forced to relive their last moments repeatedly. For instance, the dead from a warzone will share a Beach looking like a battlefield.

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' has one of these, described as "between realms". This area is seen in Volume 6, where the God of Light summons Ozma's soul from the afterlife and gives him his task of uniting the second wave of humanity.
[[/folder]]

* Near the end of ''Webcomic/ItsWalky'', characters killed by the Martians reunite, along with Ruth and Dina, in a bizarre void that Ruth insists is Purgatory, and more rational characters a shared sink of severed consciousness before it's claimed by entropy. The technology exists to retrieve the minds of people in this state, but they remember none of it.

* Creator/DanielThrasher: The After in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytHaqTw-zsw "Welcome to the After (music video)"]] is a WhiteVoidRoom with nothing but a couch and television where dead souls go to be judged.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', episode "Dawn of the Dead Man!": When you die, you hang around the world of the living, invisible and inaudible, until you are called to GoIntoTheLight. What's beyond the Light is not shown, and it's stated that once you go into the Light, there's no returning.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{ThunderCats|2011}}'' arc "Trials of Lion-O", when young hero Lion-O dies suddenly, his AmuletOfConcentratedAwesome, the Spirit Stone, activates to force him to go on AdventuresInComaland. He wakes up in a metaphysical waystation where SpiritAdvisor Jaga awaits to provide exposition about Lion-O's impending VisionQuest and open the gateway to his MentalWorld. Once Lion-O is finished there, he travels back to the antechamber for another talk with Jaga.

* 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, which claims that there is no afterlife; [[CessationOfExistence nothing comes next]].
* 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 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?

* The afterlife in ''Theatre/OurTown'' is implied to be this.

* Creator/DanielThrasher: The After in "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytHaqTw-zsw Welcome to the After (music video)]]" is a WhiteVoidRoom with nothing but a couch and television where dead souls go to be judged.

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

* In ''Anime/AliceInBorderland'', [[spoiler:we find out at the very end that this is where the whole story was set -- a strange borderland between life and death, from which return is possible but very difficult.]]

* ''Webcomic/DICETheCubeThatChangesEverything'': Near the end Dongtae is knocked out from the battlefield and dreams of his perfect world. He's not bullied and is dating Eunju, who has a flirty personality. Then Mio's ghost appears, shows Eunju doesn't have a scar, and tells they're in a fluid where the unfulfilled wishes are digested by the Final Die, after which he chooses to return. With the Final Die itself being aware of it, it's implied it was a LotusEatingMachine as well. Dongtae escapes by a lucky Dice thrown from above landing on him.

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' has one of these, described as "between realms". This area is seen in Volume 6, where the God of Light summons Ozma's soul from the afterlife and gives him his task of uniting the second wave of humanity.
[[/folder]]

* In Mick Stevens' ''Poodles from Hell'', a dead cartoonist's spirit channels through a living one to describe the afterlife. Right after you die you go to rest and think things over in a typical small workplace break room -- couple of tables and chairs, napkin dispenser, coffee and soda machines.

* In the [[spoiler:normal]] ending of ''VideoGame/{{Everhood}}'', [[spoiler:it's revealed that there is an odd-looking dimension called the Waiting Room, where the slain characters end up in. After killing the universe, Pink ends up here too, reconciling with those who were killed]].

* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', the dead Eugene Greenhilt is pissed because the Blood Oath he swore leaves him stuck waiting in the antechamber. What is seen of the other side applies to some extent as well: the Lawful Good afterlife takes the form of a mountain, arranged by altitude in layers of increasingly abstract pleasures. Souls are expected to go to the level they wish, then climb higher as they get bored and seek greater enlightenment. The lower levels are relatively mundane, and are all you get to see.

* In ''Literature/DantesInfanzia'', Heaven can be found just outside of Limbo across the narrow path. You fall off the narrow path and you wind up in Hell.