History Main / TheNothingAfterDeath

* ''Machinima/ReynaldoTheAssassin'': Demons go to "The Abyss" when they die. They are, however, allowed to bring one item with them (possibly even a [[spoiler:Get out of the Abyss Free Card]]).

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': When [[Characters/AbraxasHrodvitnon San]] attempts to view Vivienne's memories of her first death and subsequent revival, due to her apparently having had a temporary CessationOfExistence when dead, San instead just sees a Nothing. San is subsequently terrified of the prospect that he might enter such a Nothing if [[TwoBeingsOneBody he and Vivienne]] die permanently.

* One theological position derived from Literature/TheFourGospels is that Hell is that the suffering of Hell comes from its utter isolation, emptiness and separation from God after glimpsing His incredible glory. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_darkness The Outer Darkness]] for more.

* In this page of the ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' supplementary comic [[http://www.teamfortress.com/loosecanon/12.html Loose Canon]], Mr. Blutarch Mann knows there's nothing after death because he is hooked up to a machine that revives him daily.

** Kind of an odd example seeing as his father's ghost haunts a shed.
*** And as of ''Grave Matters'', the trope is subverted completely. Hell exists, and anyone can get there just by digging straight down ([[http://www.teamfortress.com/gravematters/#f=19 though it's a prohibitively expensive project]]). Most likely so long as their machines could revive them they didn't "count" as really being dead. Also, Redmond and Blutarch are shown as ghosts, implying the brothers ''had'' no natural afterlife.
*** And "Old Wounds" gives us a look at [[FluffyCloudHeaven Heaven]], where [[spoiler:Sniper's adoptive parents are]]. That one may have been a hallucination, though.
*** Later further subverted in favour of a more traditional FluffyCloudHeaven / FireAndBrimstoneHell dichotomy, seemingly visited by [[spoiler: Scout and Medic respectively]] in "The Naked and the Dead". Suffice it to say that death is complicated in ''Team Fortress 2''.

* ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'': John Constantine runs across a fallen angel turned EldritchAbomination ruling over one of these. Expressly stated to be [[UpToEleven worse than Hell]], it is a grey waste full of the souls of suicides, lining up to be devoured by the creature inhabiting that plane.

* The titular character in ''ComicBook/{{Sasmira}}'', upon her resurrection, swore that there was nothing after death and that the Egyptian gods didn't exist. She was sentenced by her father to have her mouth gagged with a device in order to silence her.

* in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', there is one character you come across who claims to be a fortune teller. He says that sees a future of "Blackness, a dark, endless void that you will soon occupy!" He then reveals himself as a Yiga clan member and tries to kill you.

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'': [=GLaDOS=] suggests this or worse.
-->[[spoiler:''"You're curious about what happens after you die, right? Guess what? I know! You're going to find out first-hand before I can finish telling you, though, so I won't bother. I'll give you a hint: you're going to want to pack as much living as you possibly can into the next couple of minutes."'']]

** The ''Shadowlands'' expansion reveals that the nothingness is intentionally artificial; Arthas and Sylvanas ended up in the Maw, the ''Warcraft'' version of {{Hell}} dedicated to devouring the power of its prisoners' souls by isolating and sensory-depriving them while monsters eat their essence. Slowly. While the Maw is intended for the blackest of hearts, something happened that forced ''everyone'' who died afterward to be ReroutedFromHeaven and go straight into the Maw. This may explain the undead's instant emo attitude when they're resurrected.
* In ''VideoGame/SagaFrontier'', near the end of Blue's game, you're told that trying to use Gate magic, which normally allows you to teleport between the regions, will result in you being "cast away into the eternal oblivion."
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
** When Matriarch Benezia lies dying in ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', she expects to see light, like the millenia old Asari religion promised her, but instead sees and feels nothing.
** A deleted scene from ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' would have had Ashley asking Shepard about what he experienced while he was dead before Cerberus brought him back. Shepard could have answered with this trope.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series generally averts it. The souls of the deceased can go to a number of different afterlives, largely depending on what deities the deceased in question worshiped or swore servitude to in life. These range from a couple types of SpiritWorld to variants of a WarriorHeaven to the [[EldritchLocation Daedric]] [[GeniusLoci Planes]] to even {{reincarnation}} via the "Dreamsleeve". There are a few known exceptions, however:
** The worshipers of [[EldritchAbomination Sithis]], referred to as a "[[PowerOfTheVoid great void]]" and a primordial force representing chaos, join him in the "[[VoidBetweenTheWorlds The Void]]" surrounding creation. Joining Sithis in "The Void" is the ''desired'' afterlife for members of the Dark Brotherhood, an [[MurderInc organization of assassins]] which doubles as a [[ReligionOfEvil cult to Sithis]].
** Sentient beings who have had their souls trapped end up in in the Soul Cairn, an unaligned plane of Oblivion ruled by the mysterious [[EnergyBeing Ideal Masters]]. It is a barren wasteland the souls are forced to wander for all eternity.
* ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': [[spoiler:Mr. House's]] dying curse to the Courier if they choose to kill him has him wishing them this.
* ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'': This is what the brains preserved by the Hall of Brains experience. When Raz enters the brain of Helmut Fullbear, it's a void of total darkness inhabited by only his sense-deprived consciousness with almost none of his memories. When placed inside a host body, Helmet is overwhelmed by all the sensations he's missed out on and Raz must help him reconnect with all of his lost senses to remember who he is.
* Invoked in ''Videogame/{{BlazBlue}}'' by Ragna during his Astral finish:
-->"There is no Hell, just Darkness."
* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' describes the afterlife as "Where the dead endure nothingness while awaiting reincarnation". But before you can even get that, you have to wait in line, and the line is ''long''. So long, that Charon asks for a bribe so he can just revive you.
* In the final episode of ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands'', [[spoiler: after Helios has crashed and Jack has tried one last time to [[TakingYouWithMe kill Rhys by forcing him to strangle himself to death with his own arm,]] Rhys begins [[LifeOrLimbDecision ripping out all his cybernetics to get Jack out of his body for good,]] effectively killing him. Jack [[OhCrap realizes what Rhys is doing,]] and starts [[VillainsWantMercy frantically begging him in earnest to stop, even dropping to his knees,]] saying that he doesn't want to go back to being dead.]]
--> [[spoiler: '''Jack:''' There's nothing. There's absolutely ''nothing there.'' '''Don't do this.''']]
* Zigzagged in ''VideoGame/DivinityOriginalSinII''. There ''is'' an afterlife, known as the Hall of Echoes, and mortals tend to hang around a bit as spirits before finally crossing over. However, [[spoiler:once they do so, the gods stand ready to consume them, essentially annihilation their souls.]]
* ''VideoGame/FallenLondon'':
** The [[OurSoulsAreDifferent bodily souls]][[note]]If you sell your soul, this residual soul is the player character.[/note]] of those who permanently die end up in the Far Shore, a realm of far too many bodies and far too little space. Whatever was originally there has since been long buried under mountains of decaying corpses.
** Meanwhile, their spiritual souls are [[SoulEating devoured]] [[CessationOfExistence by]] [[JerkassGods gods]] or used to [[PoweredByAForsakenChild power]] AHellOfATime.

* Those who permanently die in ''VideoGame/FallenLondon'' end up in the Far Shore, a realm of far too many bodies and far too little space. Whatever was originally there has since been long buried under mountains of decaying corpses.

* In ''ComicBook/{{TheSculptor}}, Death shows David a vision of the afterlife, represented by two pages of blank, white paper.

* At the end of the ''Manga/DeathNote'' series, [[spoiler:Ryuk]] is shown to have told [[spoiler:Light]] in a flashback that [[OnlyOneAfterlife there's no Heaven or Hell for anyone]]; at the beginning of the series, he had told him that this was the case only for Death Note users. In the Anime, this is shown through an eyecatch, where it's said that the place people go after they die is Mu, "Nothingness". It's not clear if this means this trope or CessationOfExistence, and it seems up to the audience to decide, but either way it's a rather bleak peek into existentialism.

* The Christopher Durang play ''Miss Witherspoon'' had the spirits of people who didn't believe in an afterlife being basically anaesthetized for all eternity. They actually are in the afterlife, but they're not conscious of it, or anything else really.

* Heavily implied to be the case in ''Franchise/TheWitcher'' through several quests that deal with ghosts, spirits and corpses brought back to the world of the living. They express little to no knowledge of what lies beyond, and refer to their resurrection as "waking up". One quest however which deals with the cursed spirit of a warrior from [[HornyVikings Skellige]] suggests that there may be a sort of Valhalla, as the spirit claims to hear laughter and cheering and the clanking of chalices as he passes over.

*** An apparently significant phrase in the article, [[spoiler:"Belief is the key"]] suggests an alternate, more uncomfortable possibility. [[spoiler:What happened to the resurrected 05 [[HopeSpot may ''not'' be the default afterlife for all human beings]]. Just [[SelfInflictedHell those who learn about it]] by, say, reading about his experience.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'': Dolurrh, the only provable afterlife, is like this. Souls go there and slowly lose their memories and waste away, until they eventually fade into nothingness. Most religions either claim they have some way of avoiding it (the Silver Flame claims its worshippers join the Flame on death, while seekers of the Blood of Vol work to obtain divine apotheosis) or that there's something that comes after the fading (vassals of the Sovereigns believe that after fading from Dolurrh souls will join the Sovereigns beyond). To make this even bleaker, unlike in most ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' settings, religions in Eberron are truly based on faith, rather than verifiable fact. So no one has any actual proof that there's anything waiting for them besides emptiness.

* The ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' setting ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' has an afterlife plane, Dolurrh, like this; the souls within even fade away eventually. Most religions have to do with avoiding it (the Silver Flame claims that its god created a paradaisical afterlife) or having faith that something comes after it. The sourcebook notes it's not just or unjust, good or evil: it just is.
** To make this even bleaker, unlike in most ''Dungeons & Dragons'' settings, religions in Eberron are truly based on faith, rather than verifiable fact. In the original version, there was absolutely no evidence the Gods[[note]]besides certain objects of worship such as the Silver Flame or Dreaming Dark, which are verifiably things that actually exist, but are of questionable divinity[[/note]] exist or ever existed -- you could even worship a God with an alignment farther from yours than 3.5e would normally allow as a cleric and still be capable of Divine Magic. In 4e, there's no longer this exemption, and the Gods now have Astral Realms... but they've long since deserted them, if they ever actually inhabited them at all.
** The 3.5 Tome of Magic introduces a class called Binders whose shtick is dealing with souls who have experienced this. For whatever reason, they are barred from any sort of afterlife and exist in a state of nothingness, and are thus willing to "bind" to the Binder and grant him some of their power in return for getting to exist once more. Two examples of beings this happened to are Acererak from TabletopGame/TombOfHorrors (serves him right for what he put a generation of gamers through), and a thief who thought it would be funny to repent at the last moment, thus "stealing" his soul from Olidammara the god of thieves. Olidammara was impressed, but couldn't very well let such a great thief belong to any ''other'' deity, so he banished him from existence instead.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', [[http://www.sinfest.net/view.php?date=2005-08-05 Pooch envisions death as like this, after Percy's description.]]

* ''Literature/{{Inferno}}'', a book by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle as a 20th century update of Dante, has the protagonist stuck in his own pocket universe of nothingness after death until he finally breaks down and calls out to God to rescue him.

* In [[https://www.deviantart.com/paintedserenity/gallery/47212674/E-O-A-R-comic "Eyes of a Raven"]] [[spoiler: [[GreaterScopeVillain Scourge]] is confirmed to have gone to one such afterlife, it... [[GoMadFromTheIsolation might have messed him up a bit]], [[{{Understatement}} just a little though]].]]

*** And as of ''Grave Matters'', the trope is subverted completely. Hell exists, and anyone can get there just by digging straight down ([[http://www.teamfortress.com/gravematters/#f=19 though it's a prohibitively expensive project]]). Most likely so long as their machines could revive them they didn't "count" as really being dead.

* ''Literature/WarriorCats'' has WordOfGod saying that [[FlatEarthAtheist Scourge]]'s soul dissapeared after he died, because he didn't believe in any afterlife, implying either tis or CessationOfExistence.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** The Red Priestess Melisandre is shown Beric Dondarrion, a knight-turned-outlaw who has been killed and resurrected six times.
-->'''Melisandre:''' You've been to the other side.
-->'''Dondarrion:''' The other side? There is no 'other side'. I have been to the darkness, my lady.
** {{Discussed}} when Arya and Sandor come across a dying farmer. Wondering why he doesn't kill himself to end the pain, Arya says "Nothing could be worse than this." The farmer replies that maybe nothing ''is'' worse than this. Arya argues it couldn't be, based on nothing being well, ''[[ShapedLikeItself nothing]].'' In the end, [[MercyKill Sandor kills him]].
** [[spoiler: When Jon Snow is revived by Melisandre, she asks him what he saw, and he says he saw nothing.]]

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Season 11 reveals the existence of "the Empty," a void that is implied to be this. In the episode "Form and Void," the Reaper Billie tells Sam that the Reapers are all fairly pissed that the brothers [[spoiler:killed their boss (a.k.a. ''[[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu Death himself]]'')]] at the end of the last season, not to mention they've been sick of the two of them repeatedly dying and coming back to life for a good while now, so the next time they die, Billie will personally send their souls to the Empty [[DeaderThanDead to ensure they'll never be able to come back again]]. It's confirmed that entities without souls (such as angels) go there by default, since in season 13 the nephilim Jack brings back [[spoiler:Castiel]] from the void after he was previously killed by Lucifer. Also, the Empty itself is [[GeniusLoci sentient]].

** Neelix winds up in this kind of afterlife. Since he was expecting [[spoiler:to be reunited with his family]], you kinda feel sorry for him...

* ''WebVideo/TheSagaOfBiorn'': This is the fate that the old Viking warrior Biorn wants to avoid, determined to die in glorious battle and go to [[WarriorHeaven Valhalla]] rather than die of old age and go to the blank, featureless Helheim, where the souls of the dead stand around doing absolutely nothing, bored out of their minds. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, the nuns he saved during the battle that killed him give him a Christian burial, which acts as a PostMortemConversion and sends him to FluffyCloudHeaven instead... [[HellOfAHeaven which is exactly like Helheim]] except fluffier and cloudier (and full of nuns).]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/TheLastDaysOfFoxhound https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ds_hell.png]]]]