Fuck HIPAA. This inmate is the most dangerous thing I've ever come across and I'm freaking out

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Dopabeane on 2024-11-20 01:41:03+00:00.

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In 1909, an antiquities excavation crew in Caerleon, Newport, South Wales vanished in a tunnel below the ruins of the Isca Augusta. The details surrounding their fates remain unknown.

All that is known is that their bodies were mutilated, fully disarticulated, and then rearranged in a spectacularly disturbing tableau inside the mouth of the tunnel.

This was not the first such tableau, nor has it been the last. In fact, the other reason this incident is in any way significant relative to the scope of the perpetrator’s actions is that it finally led to the eventual capture of the most dangerous entity known to the Agency of Helping Hands:

The Harlequin.

If our work demonstrates any truth with utter certainty, it is that the nature of reality is inconstant.

Our senses lie to us. They muffle, omit, and deceive to prop up the absurd house of cards that comprises the foundation of our limited perception. Reality is porous. Worse, it is malleable. Worst of all, it is a trap. Like unwitting ants stumbling into a glue trap, so does our reality trap us. This is simply the way of things. This trap was made for us, and we are made for our trap. It is a troublesome and ugly yet foundational balance.

Problems arise when things that are not like us – things that do not belong here with us – slide into our trap alongside us.

No entity demonstrates the nature of this particular complication so thoroughly or so dramatically as the Harlequin. 

The existence of the Harlequin has been known to the Agency of Helping Hands since its inception, but due to a preponderance of fables, legends, and false information abounding, the Harlequin evaded detection for nearly one hundred years.

The Harlequin is an utter enigma. To date, the Agency does not know where it comes from, what its motives or goals are, or even what it is. 

The only information the Agency has on the Harlequin is the information it volunteers.

By his own admission, the Harlequin’s favorite activity is upsetting children. He taunts them by taking on various forms including a monster, a spider, a werewolf, a clown, a mime, a king, and a dog with the face of an old man.

His favorite place is California, because – in his words – “California is the capitol of the show.”

He has murdered entire families for no apparent reason, returned to mutilate victims he has already terrorized, and – most problematically—been observed attempting to lure minors and developmentally disabled adults to a place he calls “The City Bright.” The Harlequin has never divulged the meaning or location of “the city bright.” Of the numerous victims he successfully lured and abducted before the Agency could intervene, only one has been located. Due to the sheer scope of damage inflicted by the Harlequin’s interference, this victim is currently incarcerated in AHH-NASCU.

When asked about the purpose of these abductions, the Harlequin’s only answer is, “To prepare.”

The only silver lining to the Harlequin’s appalling actions is that he usually “disappears” his victims from the memory of those who knew them, resulting in startlingly few complications for the Agency.

The major issue with his talent for “unexisting” is, of course, the question of the people, places, things, and history he has potentially “unexisted” outside the scope of the Agency’s ability to retrieve such information. For this reason among others, the Harlequin is considered the Agency’s most dangerous inmate. 

As previously stated, the Harlequin was accidentally discovered in 1909 in Caerleon, Newport, South Wales. He was living in a tunnel below the ruins of the Isca Augusta. Although the entity was not discovered on U.S. soil, the United States did not want a foreign government to capture it due to concerns over the potential power such a being might bestow upon its captors. For this reason, the Agency made capture and containment of this being its primary goal. Due to the Agency’s complete lack of experience with entities like the Harlequin, capture was not achieved until 1926.

The entity was captured while wearing a very dirty and immense leather cloak with a patched motley pattern. Testing determined that the leather was human skin, and that each patch of “motley” was made of flesh from a distinct human individual.

Testing was halted during the Harlequin’s first containment breach. Although the cloak remained in Agency custody for the duration of the entity’s escape, new motley patches appeared along the edges of the cloak at a rate of approximately four per week until the Harlequin was re-apprehended. Upon its recapture, personnel asked the Harlequin how it had obtained the new patches of skin and integrated them into the cloak. Its answer was nonsensical, and to this day not understood:

“By filling the holes.”

When first captured by Agency personnel, the Harlequin introduced himself as “Your servant, Arlecchino.” Over the course of the preposterously unproductive conversation that followed, it gave three other names for itself: Hellequin, Zanni, and Herla Cyning. When called upon to explain these discrepancies, the entity stated that it in fact had no name and was nothing but a faithful servant.

When asked who it served, the Harlequin answered, “That which must be served.”

When asked what must be served, its nonsensical answer was, “Four in seven, just as you worms. Four in seven.”

Agency personnel immediately proceeded to research the names provided by the Harlequin. It quickly became clear that the entity was playing a joke of some kind. Arlecchino, Hellequin, Zanni, and Herla Cyning are all terms related to the figure of “Harlequin,” a stock character that frequently appears in Italian Commedia Dell’Arte plays.

Agency administration believe that the entity’s use of these names is significant and holds clues as to the Harlequin’s purpose and motives, a view bolstered by the fact that the Harlequin was located in the ruins of an ancient theater. Nevertheless, no substantial ties have been discovered at this time.

Due to the Commedia Dell’Arte references and the motley cloak in which it was discovered, the Agency named the entity Harlequin.   

The Harlequin’s extracurricular activities do not stop at the terrorizing and abduction of children. During its frequent containment breaches, the Harlequin creates holes and ports in what can only be termed “the fabric of existence,” and changes reality in ways almost no one can detect. In one instance, he once “unexisted” an entire town. In another, he vanished a popular film franchise from existence simply because – in his own words – it was so objectively terrible that simply knowing it existed was intolerable. During yet another escape, he “unzipped” reality, allowing an as-yet unidentified entity to slip through. The whereabouts of this entity are currently unknown.

Although its cloak hides most of its body from view, Agency personnel have determined that the Harlequin is unusually large – roughly the height of a polar bear, with bodily proportions that seem at least somewhat human.

The only part of the Harlequin’s body not concealed by its cloak are its jaws, which protrude in a manner best described as “lupine.” They are approximately eleven inches in and covered in puffy, suppurating flesh that appears blistered and scarred. The cause of these injuries is unknown.

The Harlequin possesses three rows of teeth. The largest and most prominent somewhat resembles crocodile teeth. The inner rows of teeth are much smaller and sharper, and bear a strong resemblance to oversized coyote teeth. 

As previously mentioned, the Harlequin breaches containment on a regular basis. During these escapes, it leaves behind its cloak, which continues to expand in its absence.

The Harlequin is capable of assuming various appearances. Whenever Agency personnel locate the Harlequin after a containment breach, it takes the appearance of a human male with auburn hair and blue eyes. Although superficially normal, this body induces a severe and clinically significant form of what is popularly referred to as “the uncanny valley effect.” The Harlequin is aware of this, and appears to take great pleasure in subtly changing the proportions of its face and body until it inflicts maximum psychological distress on its captors. 

The Harlequin maintains this body until it reenters its cell, at which point it crawls under its cloak to assume what personnel believe to be its true form.

To date, no Agency personnel have seen the Harlequin in its true form without its cloak.

The above statements comprise the sum total of the information the Agency has gathered in the century since the entity’s capture.

The Harlequin is uncontrollable, indestructible, and effectively uncontainable. While the Agency maintains a cell for him, he routinely escapes. When it comes to neutralizing him, we are lost. As of this writing, he is at large and we have no idea what to do.

As of this writing, the only planned course of action is to arrange for T-Class Agent Bowman to interview the Harlequin immediately upon his recapture.

The Harlequin

Classification String: Uncooperative / Indestructible / Olympic / Protean/ Critical / Egregore

Interviewer: Rachele B.

Interview Date: Pending

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I know.

There's no interview.

Here's why:

As penance for accidentally facilitating the release of a clinically insane inmate with a penchant for child-massacre, my boss gave me homework.

...

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