A nice thing.

Dr. Chambers pulled his hand​ back to reveal a green ring clamped to his pinky finger. He stared at it in disbelief.

"No," he whispered. The flesh around it was turning a sickly shade of gray, as though becoming desaturated. He looked up at Madison's smiling face. "No!"

Dr. Chambers sprinted to the kitchen and began rifling through the drawers with his right hand while his left arm hung limply at his side. He pulled out a cheap chef's knife and gripped it by the plastic handle. With a crazed look in his eye, he flopped his useless arm onto the counter and raised the knife high.

He screamed and brought it down, but before it could cleave his flesh his arm was halted by the the outstretched hand of Madison. His eyes bugged out of his skull and he whimpered uncharacteristically.

"That would not be in your best interest," she explained cheerfully as she deftly disarmed him.

Chambers dropped to his knees as Andrew entered the kitchen. He raised his rapidly graying arm to heaven and wailed. The discoloration was already spreading to his shoulder. Madison knelt next to him and cradled his head to her bosom as he wept and sputtered.

"It's... I can feel it," he babbled through tears. "Clay is just, it's me, I can feel it I can feel it I CAN FEEL IT IT'S IN ME!"

Madison pressed his head into her chest as his words degenerated into incoherent burbles and the color leached from his lips and eyes. She shushed him gently and his cries became whimpers, then stopped entirely. For several terrible minutes, the stocky frame of the professor trembled against his diminutive thrall. Ross joined Andrew, rubbing his sore jaw, and the pair watched in silence as one of the foremost Yetzirologists on the planet transformed into his own object of study.

Finally Dr. Chambers' joints seemed to loosen all at once and Madison released her grip. His eyes turned milky white and he crumpled to the floor, an unblinking marionette.

The boys stared at the grim tableaux in shock. After a moment Madison rose and brushed off her knees. She embraced Ross, who was too stunned to reciprocate.

"What..." Andrew trailed off, unable to finish his question. Ross continued to stare mutely at the freshly created golem on the floor.

Madison giggled, a light sound that only heightened the sense of unreality pervading the scene. "I think I should let Professor Levinson explain."

She took the script back to the crumpled form of the professor, who rose with a nervous expression.

"Is it done?" she asked, and sighed with relief when Madison nodded.

"What the FUCK?" Ross sputtered, finding his voice for the first time since the bizarre spectacle began.

Erica sat calmly on the couch and began to explain.