When you die, a whole life flashes in front of your eyes. To think that someone could try and imitate it, learn that whole life and live it like you do, that's a ridiculous thought.
My death makes me wonder whether people actually saw me. Did they really see Bobby Fulbright?
It was late at night when he came. I'd just crawled into bed, had a long day at the precinct, was preparing to meet with Simon Blackquill, the man who murdered Dr. Cykes over at GYAXA all that time ago, to become his guardian. I was nervous. I'd been real nervous for a while. I'd drink more coffee and my hands would shake and when I was alone in my apartment I always felt uneasy. Always. So I'd just drink more coffee and tell myself that all of the years I'd been on the force were beginning to get to me.
Laying in bed, I shuffled around in the darkness. The cool sheets felt good against my bare skin, but my muscles wouldn't stop tensing and moving. My pillow got flipped at least a dozen times before I was finally still enough to hear a few creaking footsteps in my kitchen.
I froze. Panic overtook me for a brief moment. My entire body became one sweaty, clammy mess.
I grabbed my gun from my night stand and stalked over to the door. Hands shaking, I pushed it open a crack to peek into my kitchen. A night light I kept plugged into the wall lit up the entire place. The counters were still neat, clean, just as I'd left them. Nobody was sitting at the table, just like I never sat at the table. Keeping my gun held out, I stepped out of my bedroom to scan what was to the right of my bedroom, the living room.
A figure stood there. I couldn't tell who he was. My head was racing as he sat and stared at a picture I had hanging up on my wall - if memory served me well, it was a picture from when I graduated from the academy. Official uniform, standing tall. Mother had always made me stand tall.
My police training kicked in and I stated calmly and loudly, "Move away from the wall."
The figure turned his head and replied in a deep voice, "You won't shoot me." As he stepped into the light from the kitchen, I could see two evil eyes that seemed to bore holes into me. Panic began to build a lump in my throat as I stared into those eyes.
That was really the last thing I remember from the viewpoint of my body. Next thing I know I'm being choked and I'm flopping around like a ragdoll in the wind, my mind unable to process all of the training I'd had for these exact moments. That and the man had an incredible grip.
As my eyes close like my trachea is, I catch glimpses of my life. Running through long fields of tall grass with that girl, oh my, her name was Susie. I remember her. We used to hold hands and her skin was so smooth with all of those freckles. I could've sat there and counted them like stars in the night sky if I wanted to. We would giggle and run ourselves breathless and just collapse until my mother would call me and tell me to come home.
Then there was the horrific moment that I realized I was also attracted to men. Like a shot in the silent night air, it came to me as I was sitting on my bed sophomore year of high school. It made me uncomfortable, and for the longest time, I remember crying myself to sleep, wondering if I was gay or straight or whatever the hell I was. It was like being punched in the gut five hundred times a day, looking at other guys in the hallway and wondering what they'd think if you held their hand, if you kissed them.
God, then there was Zach. Zach was the one to help me come to terms with the fact that I was bisexual. And we held hands and we kissed. But I didn't tell my Mom. Mom had enough going on at home, at work. Zach never asked why all of my clothes were too big or too small. He just asked if holding hands was alright. I remember running through the field with him, the same one I'd ran through with Susie as small children. Except now we were developing teens with a need to feel needed. So we carved into one of the trees on the edge of the field, on the edge of my world. I carved, "Bobby was here." Zach carved, "Same Love."
But we broke up and Mom died a year after I graduated high school. Brief glimpses of the funeral. All black. Not that many attendees. Gas station clerks who smoke three packs a day didn't have that many friends.
I remember after the funeral going back into the woods and finding my tree. It was still there: "Bobby was here." I decided then that I'd bring justice back to this rotting world, that I'd live up to the name my deadbeat father gave me. I'd have a full, bright future.
Graduating academy wasn't all that hard. I had a few friends who knew about some of the stuff that went on in my life. Mostly I was seen as that guy who takes his job way too seriously - I knew I was that guy, but it never really bothered me. It made me happy every time I made an arrest, when I caught the bad guy and was the hero. I'd ride that high out until I caught the next bad guy, and the next. It was like some kind of bizarre game, but I enjoyed every minute of it.
The rest of it was just kind of filler. Everyday stuff. Making arrests, investigative work, criminology seminars.
And then I was in dead space, floating around, watching my body being broken up and carved so that I was unrecognizable and could fit into a trash bag.
Watching, I wondered, is this all that's supposed to become of me? Was this really what my entire life was building up to?
But what made me angriest was the fact that no one noticed. My body was washed up on the edge of a river for a month before anyone even found it. Nobody at work seemed to notice that that thing, that monster, that that wasn't me. Nobody knew. Nobody cared.
I wonder if they'd remember me and see the difference in their memories if they went back to that tree by my childhood home. If they felt the same summer air that cooled when the sun went down and saw the beat up shack that I lived in, would they hear me? Would they hear what I've been trying to tell them for months now whispered in between the long blades of grass?
But when that man, Phoenix Wright, that legendary defense attorney took down the man I learned to actually be The Phantom, it was only then that I learned the irony. I was a phantom even when I was actually alive - nobody even saw me. I phased out one night and nobody even noticed when I was replaced by another phantom. A walking phantom that was just a pawn in the scheme of a far more important phantom. But they showed the Phantom, they showed the world, Bobby was here! Bobby was here! Bobby occupied that body once!
But one can only stay for so long after one sees out his purpose. Justice was finally served, now wasn't it? My legacy, my mindset, it lives on in these attorneys, even Simon. Now it's time to run to a field much like the one I grew up in. I imagine that's what heaven is like. It's the place where I made it known - Bobby was here.
Author's Note: I don't really know how to describe just how much Bobby Fulbright makes me sad. I see the Ace Attorney fandom going nuts over Bobby but it's The Phantom acting like Bobby. We never really got to see Bobby Fulbright. It just makes me wonder what the real Bobby thought, being cut down before his life was over. Was it the justice he deserved? Absolutely not.