The reflection had no answer.It stared back—poised, unreadable, almost indifferent. A stranger carved from confidence. Not a flicker of recognition. Not a hint of who Demien Walter used to be.
He stepped back from the mirror and let the silence settle. No heart monitor. No nurse. Just the faint murmur of the city bleeding through the window seams—honking scooters, clinking glass, a distant seagull wailing over Monte Carlo's midday hum.
His feet moved on their own, bare against the marble floor. Each step felt off-balance, not clumsy but... different. Like the rhythm had changed. Like the center of gravity wasn't where it used to be. He flexed his fingers and watched how they curled. Long, slim. Too smooth to be his. There should've been scars—knuckle nicks, turf burns, that old fracture from the away match at Huddersfield. Gone.
He paced the room. Slow circles. Breathing through his nose, trying to ground himself, trying to remember how it felt to be normal. His shoulders sat higher. His back straighter. Even the way he turned corners felt... professional.
A flicker of black caught his eye. On the desk near the bed, something sat neatly atop a closed leather folio.
He approached cautiously, as if it might disappear.
A press tag.
The badge was clipped to a smooth rectangle of dark leather. Gold trim. Thick stitching. Quality stuff. Monaco didn't mess around, clearly. He picked it up—slow, measured—like it might weigh more than it should.
Yves LaurentHead Coach, AS Monaco FC
His thumb grazed the surface. Laminate. Clean. Untouched.
The man in the photo was the one from the mirror. No smile. Just cool, surgical confidence. A crisp white collar under a black blazer, expression carved out of strategy. Tactical. Reserved. There was power in that stare, the kind that didn't beg to be liked.
Demien's breath caught. It wasn't a joke.This wasn't a dream he'd forgotten how to wake from.
Yves Laurent. That name… it meant something.
He turned back to the desk and flipped open the leather folio.
A stack of papers sat inside. Clean margins. Organized in the kind of way that made Demien self-conscious of his old messy notebooks. First, a daily itinerary: breakfast slot, press briefing at 10:30, training setup by noon, tactical review by 15:00. Everything structured to the minute.
Below it, a set of printed pages with player names and positions. Notes scribbled in the margins—"Morientes link-up?" and "Giuly drifting too wide—tighten inside channel."
A scrawl at the bottom of one: Y. Laurent.
His eyes traced the formations next. Red ink circled variations of a 4-3-3 diamond and a 4-2-2-2. Lines connecting names to positions. Giuly. Evra. Plasil. Rothen.
Each one lit a flare in his memory—not his own, not entirely. Like facts half-learned in another life. He remembered seeing those names years ago. Giuly's pace on the right. Evra bombing down the left. Monaco in red and white, hitting with speed and control.
No. No, this didn't make sense.
He backed away from the desk as if distance might make it clearer.
This wasn't limbo. It wasn't coma dreaming. Not some tragic flicker before brain death. No. It was too crisp. Too real. He could smell the citrus from the minibar fridge, could feel the faint ache in his hamstrings like this body had run drills yesterday.
A hotel TV sat across from the bed. Off. Silent.
He didn't turn it on.
Didn't need to.
The name kept echoing in his skull.
Yves Laurent.
He said it aloud—quietly, like testing the shape of it in his mouth.
"Yves Laurent."
It rolled off his tongue with a weight he hadn't expected.
And then—pain.
A sudden, blinding jolt, like someone had split his brain in two with a crowbar. His hands shot up to his temples. A groan escaped his throat, low and guttural.
Flashes exploded behind his eyelids.
A boardroom. A face twisted in anger across a polished table."This isn't Lyon. You won't bully Monaco."A tunnel lined in red banners. Cameras flashing."Coach Laurent—can we ask about the rumors?"Whistle. Stadium roar. Floodlights blazing down on the Stade Louis II."Run harder! Cut inside! Drop deep, damn it!"
Memories not his.
Or not entirely his.
It was like watching someone else's dream through his own skull—no context, no warning, just feeling. Rage. Pressure. Cold satisfaction when a goal hit the net. Pride swelling in a voice that was his and wasn't.
He dropped to one knee.
The pain peaked—then disappeared, as fast as it had come.
Sweat dampened his shirt collar. His hands shook.
But something inside had changed.
He could feel it—muscle memory that wasn't his. Thought patterns aligning like puzzle pieces. Tension he didn't recognize until now. He knew things. Knew names. Knew where the staff locker was. Knew that the youth academy director hated Rothen's attitude. Knew Evra needed shorter warm-ups because of an old ligament issue.
And he hadn't learned those things.
They were simply… there.
He staggered to his feet and looked at the badge still lying open on the desk.
Yves Laurent.
It wasn't just a name anymore.