Thirteen Seconds Before the Story Starts

A dark side street. An orange streetlamp from twenty metres away turns the trees grey but doesn’t give enough light for clarity. There is undergrowth, there are lurking places, there are puddles and cracks on the ground. What light there is, picks out imprecise diamonds of smashed glass and a sad rainbow of oil where a car has leaked. No honest person would stop here long. It is a place that causes the hairs on your neck to prickle, it is a place that makes you wish you were home. And now a gust of harsh wind brings litter with it and the start of smattering rain.