Eli stood alone in the dim workshop, the soft hum of distant machines echoing through the expansive space. The screws lay scattered on the table, their dull metallic sheen capturing flakes of yellowed light from a flickering bulb above. It was an ironic sentiment, he thought—a simple task rendered disappointing by these little pieces of metal. Perhaps they were just a metaphor for his life—a cascade of small failures piling up into something much larger and more ominous.

“Damned screws,” he muttered, running a hand through his graying hair.

Across from him, Sarah arched an eyebrow, a smile playing at the corner of her lips. “I didn’t know hardware could break your spirit, Eli.”

He chuckled, the sound hollow and dry. “Strange things, aren’t they? But it’s not about the screws.”

Sarah leaned forward, her fingers tapping softly upon the table. “Then what? Surely, it isn’t just your bad luck in assembling that shelf that’s got you like this.”

Eli sighed, a weariness in his eyes. “It’s a… pull, Sarah. A darkness. Something’s off, and I don’t know why.” He paused before continuing, “It’s almost like a shadow, creeping… unknowable.”

Her expression shifted, touched by a trace of unease. “What do you mean, unknowable? That’s a bit vague.”

“Exactly.” Eli’s voice dipped into a whisper, as if afraid of being overheard. “Vagueness is its nature. Something lurks in the familiar, something that shouldn’t be.”

Sarah frowned. Despite her initial skepticism, Eli’s intensity was disarming. “Have you been reading Stephen King again?” she teased, though her tone was less certain.

Eli didn’t respond directly, but rather, his gaze drifted to the window, where night pressed against the glass like curious fingers. “Reasoning won’t help, Sarah. This is beyond logic.”

Her eyes didn’t leave his face, concerned as she was by his sudden contemplative demeanor. “And what are you suggesting, Eli? That you’re being haunted by the ordinary?”

He chuckled again, though there was little warmth in it. “You misunderstand—it’s not the ordinary haunting me. It’s the extraordinary hiding within the familiar.”

The workshop seemed to shrink around them, the walls drawing closer as if eager to hear more. Sarah straightened, visibly uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation.

“Has something happened? Something to cause this… feeling?” she asked, attempting to tether the sinister vagueness to reality.

Eli pondered her question, nodding slowly. “An old story. A whispered conversation. You see, the mind invents horrors when left unchecked… or maybe it just reveals them.”

Silence wrapped around them, the machines whispering their own tales in the distance. Eli resumed his work with the screws, glancing at Sarah with newfound resolve.

“Whatever it is,” he murmured, “I’ll find a way to face it.”

Sarah didn’t respond, her eyes observing Eli’s hands moving deftly among the screws. As he focused, she noticed a subtle change—a shift in the room’s atmosphere. The screws seemed to pulse, as though harnessing a life of their own.

The workshop, once a place of comfort, now felt suffocating. Her gaze shifted to the window. Beyond, the shadows deepened, crawling ever closer. She stood, an unsettling chill enveloping her.

“Eli,” she whispered, “I think you’re right. Maybe the screws aren’t just screws.”

His hands paused, acknowledgment dawning in his eyes. Yet neither of them spoke further, leaving what was unsaid suspended in the air between them—a mystery to be unraveled, if not by words, then by the silent dance of shadows and the echo of 令人失望的 screws in the dark.

The bulb flickered once more, and the night passed on with secrets intact.