Le Noir

Talli put her head in her hands. The room was dark. The light from one lamp shone in the black room. She knew without looking up exactly what the lamp looked like. It was old, perhaps Victorian, with grotesque gold trimmings and beads, perhaps diamonds, hanging from the shade. It was maroon, with little paintings on the side. The paintings she didn't know, because she always sat in this chair, and it was too far away to see them.

She hated that lamp. She would rather there be darkness, forever darkness. The lamp was morbid in its chilling brilliance. She didn't need the light. She didn't want it. She only waited for one half of one hour, and then she was escorted out again.

Seven times it happened, and three times it didn't. Ten times in all she had sat in that room and waited.

There would sometimes be a noise, like the door would open, but there was no one. The lamp shone on, a sentinel of dark tidings.

There was no clock in the room, only a lamp. An unwanted and useless lamp.

Squeak.

The door opened.

Eleven and eight.

Inspiration: Prompt: a morbid lamp