Whumpee doesn’t sing anymore, not since they came back…
Their friends secretly worry it’s because of profound emotional trauma. But Whumpee tries not to think anymore about why they do or don’t do things so this, too, is swept away.
It isn’t until a routine chest X-ray when they have a cough for a few weeks that whumpee really understands why they never sung after… after that place.
Their lungs were partially collapsed, had been all this time. The doc said they had been operating on about half the air the should’ve, that the lower sections deflated at some point and never filled again. They ask about past traumatic injuries.
But Whumpee only shrugged silently. They understood now, all this time- never having enough air, it wasn’t just in their head.