The walk from the pitch to the dressing room was the longest of their lives.
The taunts from the few remaining Burton Albion fans were a distant, meaningless buzz. The only sound that mattered was the deafening, thundering silence in their own heads.
They filed into the room one by one, their movements slow, heavy, as if wading through thick mud. There was no shouting, no throwing of equipment, no angry recriminations. The disaster had been so total, so absolute, that it had gone beyond anger and settled into a state of profound, collective shock.
They took their usual spots on the benches, but the familiar, boisterous energy was gone, replaced by a vacuum of shame.
Ben Gibson, the man whose inexplicable dribble had started the avalanche, sat with his head in his hands, staring at a spot on the floor as if trying to will it to swallow him whole.
