You would still have null, but only when asked for and checked explicitly.

In Kotlin, for example, you mark something with a question mark to say that it can be null, which forces you to check for null before using it:

  val entityOrPossiblyNull: Entity? = Entity.fetch(id)

  if (entityOrPossiblyNull == null) {
      doSomething()
  }
  else {
      // The compiler knows that the variable is not null in this branch,
      // so this assignment is OK.
      val entityForSure: Entity = entityOrPossiblyNull

      doSomethingWithEntity(entityForSure)
  }