Um... I really don't know where this came from. Seriously, I just started writing and... this came out. Still, it's the shortest amount of time it's EVER taken me to write ANYTHING (it literally only took, like, half an hour - my stuff usually takes MONTHS), so... here ya go. I don't usually write in this style, but i though that I might give it a try.

Disclaimer: I don't own Lorien Legacies, or Number Nine (no matter how much I might want to). Also, reviewing would be nice. I LOVE it when people review and get really uninspired when people don't. (If no one reviews, then I take the story down.) Enjoy!

Because he's scared that if he stops acting tough then the act will crack and he'll shatter into a thousand pieces.

He pretends to be made of steel, to be the toughest of them all (unbreakable, that's him), to be the one that will tear the Mogodorians limb from limb, because he knows that, if he doesn't, then he will completely and utterly break down. (He's bloodthirsty, through and through, but there's so much more to him than that.)

Really, Number Nine is scared. He has every right to be. Before, it was different. Before, he was immortal, immortal at the price of eight others staying alive for him, but now he can be killed at any time and he would have no way of stopping it (Eight, was proof enough of that).

He feels like he has this gaping hole in his heart, one that threatens to tear him apart if he ever lets the act fall. It started years ago, on Lorien, when his mind (once pure, and innocent – it's not like that anymore) was exposed to things no child's mind should be, things such as explosions and deaths and the soldiers and fear. The look on Sandor's face, the pure horror and terror that they wouldn't make it to the airship field on time.

That's the first knife, as their ship flies away and left behind the burning people of Lorien (friends, family, strangers – all are destroyed alike). It rips inside his chest and pierced his heart, a pain that has never gone away.

The second knife comes whole years later, with a scar burning (burning, burning, burning) itself onto his ankle (his own ankle, branded and burnt and scarred), showing that he's one ally down, one person close to death. One of the only ones like him, one of the last of his kind (he's part of an endangered species, and isn't that a joke).

Number One (and he remembers her, god he remembers her), with her long blonde hair and deep blue eyes and frankly charming attitude (nasty or not, she was one of them) was gone. Gone, dead, and not coming back.

Then it's Two (sweet, innocent Two), the mark wrapping itself onto him and burning (burning, searing, agony) him, just to show that another one of them is dead (dead and gone, gone for forever, never going to meet her kind again). This knife cuts deep inside of him, into his stomach, and he can practically feel the blood spilling out and reminding him of all that he's lost.

He dreams of her, the blood the same colour as her hair, he dreams of the knife cutting inside of him, and it breaks his heart (so he pretends that he has no heart to break, so that no one can possibly know how damaged it really is).

And when Maddy (oh, Maddy) waltzes into his life and ripped it apart by the seams… She is the third knife, and the fourth and fifth and the sixth and she betrays him, gains his trust and betrays him and slices him open, cuts him apart bit by bit and slits his arms, his legs, his thighs and his face and it hurts, (oh god it hurts), and he wants to cry so badly but he can't allow himself to break, he just can't and…

And then she dies, screaming and shrieking and looking so scared and he can't do anything and the seventh knife goes right into his heart, and he just wants the pain to stop, but...

(But he's Number Nine, and he can't die, so as payment everyone else has to.)

And then Sandor (wonderful, intelligent, brilliant Sandor) actually begs him to murder him, to end this torture and living hell that he's faced with. And he does, he kills his own father (because, in this case, life is better than death). He doesn't allow himself to break, even as the knife (a nice, sharp one this time, the sharpest one yet), drives right through his chest and sending phantom blood rolling down him.

Then Three, when he's all alone with his wounds and the knives return, this one with a vengeance as it cuts through his stomach and makes him want to cry and scream and shout (but he can't give the Mogs that satisfaction). And why can't the knives just leave him alone, why can't they just go away and let him heal himself instead of inflicting more damage?

And next is Sam, gone because of him, because he was too careless (like always, like it's his fault, like it always is). And John hates him for it, and he doesn't blame him for it (he hates himself, too). And it never stops being all his fault, does it?

And then they all meet up, and Setrakus Ra leers at him (he knows about the knives, about all the cuts and the wounds, he's sure of it) and he fights him because isn't that all that he can do? What else is he good for?

Then they meet Five (and he's weird, but one of them) and Sam's okay (he's okay, he's fine, but the place where the knife went in doesn't throb any less) and now they have Malcolm, who's a Loric genius (despite not being one himself) and everything seems like it's going to be okay.

But the others are careless, careless like he was and they're going to get themselves killed (and hell if he'll lose another Garde member).

(He just wants to scream, to fall down on the floor and let the wounds bleed and let them all notice his pain because how have they not already noticed?)

Then comes Eight (Eight, who's one of his best friends), who idiotically played the hero and threw himself in front (and how can he ever live with this?), not understanding that it would be okay for Nine to die, because that would mean no more scars and no more knives.

It may be Eight that gets a physical one, but the knife drives straight into Nine's head and heart and (it's three steps forward, two steps back, and every fibre of his being aches) and he can barely even remember a time when the knives didn't follow his every move and dig into him at every possible opportunity (except that he can, and that makes it all the more painful).

And he knows, Number Nine knows that if he lets up the façade of being strong, being a warrior then all of him will crumble with it, his resilience fading away and he will shatter and break into a thousand pieces (a million pieces – unfixable, not unbreakable, never unbreakable), and he will be left with the pieces of his broken heart that the knives have torn up.

Thanks for reading, and like I said, please REVIEW!