It was well past midnight when Jacob finally returned to his house, the weight of the day’s events pressing heavily on him. His nerves were frayed, and his thoughts were a jumbled mess of anxiety and confusion. The streets of Rosewood, normally bustling with the quiet hum of late-night activity, were now shrouded in an eerie silence.
The usual sounds of distant conversations or the occasional passing car were conspicuously absent, replaced by a deep, unsettling stillness that seemed to hang in the air. As he pulled into his driveway and parked the car, Jacob’s mind was a whirl of restless thoughts.