When Kailer had fallen through the portal, she hadn’t died. She had fallen into a room with no walls. Instead of walls there were emptiness, space. She hadn’t worked up enough courage to jump into that never-ending blackness. Instead she sat on the floor, to ponder her life.
Mom would have dove into the blackness in a heartbeat.   I will never be as brave as Aiela. Kailer thought. She laid on her stomach, thinking despairing thoughts. She didn’t even know if her mother was alive. She wasn’t dead yet, but she would be. She would die of hunger and thirst. On that happy note, she took a deep breath and dove off the side of the platform.