The year is 1989 - Edinburgh.

The streets of Leith breathed damp and gray, the kind of drizzle that never fell heavy enough to justify an umbrella but soaked into everything all the same. Rows of soot-stained tenements leaned tiredly against each other, their windows blind-eyed or cracked, curtains yellowed with years of smoke.

At the corner, a pub door lazily swung open to let out the stale perfume of lager and cigarette ash, laughter spilling into the street before the door swung shut again, sealing the warmth back inside. The air was sour with diesel fumes and the tang of frying oil, the whole city pulsing with a restless energy.

Down the closes and alleyways, neon signs buzzed above dingy clubs where music thumped too loud for the thin walls. Council flats lined in rows, concrete monoliths against the pale sky, their stairwells reeking faintly of both piss, beer, and disinfectant. Great.

Posters for gigs and protests peeled on every brick wall, their slogans half-erased by rain. And somewhere behind it all, faint but ever present, the railway tracks hummed. And god, what a shitehole this was to Renton.