It was clearly arson. The insurance company promised to pay compensation, but the fact of the house being set on fire troubled Amy very little. She was worried only about her son's condition — so she quickly returned to the hospital.
Entering the room, she saw a terrible sight: her son's entire bed was soaked in blood. He himself was crying and laughing at the same time. His laughter seemed insane to her — like the laugh of a hyena.
First of all, despite her fear, she called for the doctors. Ray seemed to notice nothing around him: he continued to cry, laugh, and bite himself. This sight frightened not only Amy but the medical staff as well.
After Ray was injected with a sedative and fell asleep, Amy finally noticed the new objects in the room and asked a nurse:
"Where did these come from?"
"Courier delivery. The courier said the patient's friends sent it to him," she replied.
Starting the video, Amy couldn't watch it to the end on her first attempt. But having called the police, she nevertheless overcame herself and forced herself to watch it through. She wanted to understand what had affected her son so deeply. Besides, she felt she had an obligation to know what the girl who had become like a daughter to her during their acquaintance had to endure.
In addition to the television and the DVD player, Amy noticed a case. Opening it, she found an urn with ashes.
When the police arrived, Amy asked them to leave a copy of the recording for her. The young woman was ready to do anything to keep her son in this world — even if the thing that kept him here was hatred. She was ready to go that far.
The police quickly established the identities of the three scumbags from the video. This quartet would take on anything — they performed any dirty work for big money. The police had known about them for a long time, but the guys worked so cleanly that bringing them to justice had been impossible. As a result, the investigation concluded that the customer was the person in the mask — thus tying up all the "loose ends."
Despite her desire to keep her son alive, Amy understood she had no right to do so. Therefore, when Ray woke up, she said firmly:
"I won't lie and say I understand what you're feeling, because we both know that's not true. Let's make a deal: you give me a year and promise not to do anything to yourself. We'll spend that year searching for the scum in the mask and looking for a way to improve your condition. If in a year we achieve nothing, and you still want to leave — I won't stop you."
Feeling how his mother's hand, clutching his palm, was trembling, Ray nodded.
From that day on, Amy and Ray began searching the internet for similar cases. For this, they bought a laptop. At her son's request, Amy read aloud all the remotely similar stories and recorded them on a voice recorder.
This work was hard for both of them. By nature, they were realists and didn't believe that the picture shown on television and written in newspapers was anywhere close to reality. But they still couldn't believe that human society had rotted so thoroughly.