**Sunday, September 24, 2023**
**Demien's Apartment — Manchester**
**Morning**
The Burnley match ball sat on the chair by his kit bag, streaked with grass stains gone dry overnight, the mud cracked along the seams where his boot had caught it.
The small printed line from the match officials still ran along one panel.
Demien woke to his phone already lit up on the nightstand, the screen flashing again before the last notification had even dimmed.
He picked it up and started scrolling.
A fan edit played first — his three Burnley goals cut over a drill beat, the volley slowed down to quarter speed at the end. Below it, an old Atalanta account had posted a side-by-side: his first Serie A goal against Sampdoria on the left, the Munich free kick on the right, with the caption *we told you first*.
He kept scrolling. The volley again, from behind the goal this time. Then from the away end. Then from a phone camera in the lower tier, the audio just one long scream.
