To say that Mumbo was just moping around for the past month was an understatement. Ever since Grian's death, he let grief consume him. Grian was his best friend and to some extent, his brother. Sure he was annoying sometimes, but that's what Mumbo loved about him! His fun jokes and pranks always brightened up Mumbo's day, at least if it wasn't him being the one to get pranked.
Some days he wouldn't eat or take care of himself and most of the time, he would just spend his days around the hobbit holes and the tunnel between them. If he wasn't doing that, he was in his own home, cuddled up in his bed and guilting himself or sleeping to escape everything. When that didn't work, he would go to more...self destructive methods of trying to forget.

At this point, he had gotten passed the denial and went on to guilt. Was it his fault all of this happened? Maybe. Grian and him recently had gotten into an argument but it didn't seem very big. What if that was his breaking point? No, Grian would tell him. They told each other everything,didn't they? At least it seemed like it. Sometimes It felt as if the world had just ended. For Mumbo, maybe it did.

Weeks passed by with no change, until something started happening. A little note appeared on the wall, with only 2 words. It read:
"Hi!
-G"
It was signed the same way that Grian had always signed his letters, with the same initial, same random smiley face.
That had to be fake. It just had to be? Who would pull that kind of prank to pretend to be a person's dead friend?
No, the handwriting was exact. No one could really write the same way as Grian did, and when anyone tried to make a copy there would always be something off. This however, was a perfect imitation. Just out of curiosity, Mumbo took a pen and paper and wrote something back.
"Hello!
-Mumbo"
He taped it on the wall in the exact same spot the first note had been left.

~~~

The next day, there was another letter.
"How have you been doing?
-G"
Something was going on.
Mumbo and the what he thought was a spirit kept talking back and forth using these letters, and it gave Mumbo something to look forward to during the day. It gave him a reason to wake up, to see his friend's apparent ghost's letter that he sent back.

One day, he decided to ask the ghost this:
"Are you really Grian's Ghost?
-Mumbo"
There wasn't an answer the next day, nor the next, and the next. This silence was the reason Mumbo had built a trap for the ghost. If he could trap it, he could get an answer. With a book that Mumbo conveniently had on ghosts and spirits(maybe out of plot progression or maybe from Joe,) he had created a trap for the ghost. He set it in the exact spot where the letters were hung, and waited.
The ghost had to fall for that trap! Who wouldn't, with all the cookies and goodies there?
As Mumbo turned around, the trap sounded. Already? How?
He checked the trap. Nothing. "Hm, must've been a false alarm..." Mumbo muttered to himself as he untied the rope.
THUD! Grian(?) randomly dropped from the rope!
"Grian?!" But that wasn't his friend. This Grian had a green shirt rather than a red jumper. He was also almost transparent and grey.
"So you're the person who's been replying to my letters! Mumbo, right?" The ghost(who was certainly not Grian yet had his voice) sat up and held out his hand.
"Wha...I- you're not grian!" Mumbo fumbled.
"Well kind of. Not really, I don't want to be called by that name though."
"Oh. Ok then, what do I call you?" Mumbo asked. After a brief pause from the ghost, before it finally came up with an answer.
"Xelqua! Or Xel for short!" Xel smiled. His hand was still out, and Mumbo finally shook it. "Nice to meet you!"
'Nice to meet you'... that felt so weird coming from mumbo's best friend's voice.

~~~
I decided to use my other draft since me and my beta reader both agreed this was better and a bit closer to the original. I may publish the other. Don't forget to vote and comment! Have a great day/night guys and girls and breakfast foods!

-pancake