Prejudice. Xeno. Animosity Pain.

Part 2. Twenty Minutes Before.

By Aly the WheelerChick

Disclaimer(s): These lyrics are copywritten to Limp Bizkit. Magnet, Holes, and other related items are Louis Sachar's and not mine.

A/n: Holy crap. Reviews. You liked it? SWEEEEET! I love you guys! OH! And someone asked in email what I've been discriminated for. I'm southern Italian, and I have a little bit of a "Marlon Brando" accent, that people have picked apart and the whole nine yards. Bleh. It doesn't sound like much….but its not fun when people constantly pick out the way you say words and try to imitate you, and have dissed you and other Italians, and have asked you if you're part of the Mafia, etc.

Special Thanks to: H-Chan, Eh, Man, Sixstars, Incubus4lotr11, because they are like my fanclub, lol. You guys ROCK! Thanks for the reviews and always being open to discuss the D-tent boyz, and everything. Also, thanks to Geeseflysouthforthewinter, Satan's Apprentice, x cherrykoolaid, Quiet One (who is an awesome Zigzag writer/portrayer, read her stuff, but everyone else writes well too, so rock on!) and slvrfng, though I have no idea what they're talking about, some other random person named 'me', and everyone, lol.

I'm dead from all the loneliness, this is how i feel

Understanding everything has never been my deal

Maybe you have crossed my path to live inside of me

or maybe you're the reason why I'm losing all my decency

Twenty Minutes Earlier.

Don't you hate it when it's the middle of the night, you're sleeping like a baby, and all of a sudden you wake up and have to go to the bathroom, which sucks, cause you're so tired and cozy and the last thin you wanna do is go jump in a five-foot holes, pee, and then climb back out? You can never get quite so comfortable again. And you can never sleep as soundly either. And you usually feel a little nauseous too, though you can never figure out for the life of you why.

Magnet woke up about ten till two, AM.

He tried to ignore the aching in his bladder, and the urging fact that his body was telling him to get up and go relieve himself. He pulled the sheet up over his head, rolling onto his stomach. But as only a minute passed, he realized that wasn't possible to ignore, and he'd have to get up, unless he wanted to wet the bed. And he didn't really want to do that, exactly.

So he groaned, and violently kicked the sheets off, and rolled over again. His feet hit the hard ground, and he yawned. Then he felt around for his boots, and pulled then on, neglecting to tie the laces.

Too tired to pull on a shirt, he just went without one. Carefully, he tiptoed past Zigzag and X-Ray, trying not to make a sound. If X-Ray woke up, he'd have his neck for sure. He stumbled out the entry flap, still half-asleep, grumbling to himself in Spanish.

He was never really self-conscious about being Dominican. Latino. Hispanic. It never really bothered him, as long as people respected it. He'd been in some uneasy situations about it before, where stupid people treated him rudely, simply because of his accent or his deep skin tone. But it was never usually a big deal. He'd grown accustomed to that.

He only ever got into a fight about it once. Someone mimicking and dissing his mother's very broken English. And then went on to insult him and his country. But that was it. He usually ignored the racist comments, maybe shooting a few of his own back, but that was about the extent of it.

Making his way past the showers, toward the holes, he could hear voices. They had to be other campers, because it was no way those voices could be mistaken from counselors. Whoever it was had somewhat arrogant voices, talking slang, and laughing. It sounded like they were imitating someone.

Who the hell is up at this hour? He thought, considering the idea of going to check out what was going on, but he decided not to. He kept walking straight.

When he got to his 'destination', he hopped into one of the holes, still half-asleep. He was pretty sure nothing was in it, except him, and did his business. Then he sighed a slight, "phew", and zipped his pants back up, and tied the sleeves around his waist. Cool night air felt good on his back.

Yet, he was still thinking about the kid that bagged on his Madre.

We are all equal on the inside, aren't we? We are all equal in the eyes of God, right? So what was the big deal? He thought, with racism – or any kind of discrimination. Why did it matter? He remembered first coming to Camp green Lake, meeting X-Ray, Squid, Barfbag, and Armpit. He was then, and still was, the only Hispanic kid. One of two in the entire camp, actually. That was when he only spoke Spanish….partially ashamed that his English wasn't so good, and partially because he was intimidated. It was the only time he felt truly vulnerable for his race. But things were okay between everyone, and things lightened up.

Or so he thought, at least.

He put his arms on the flat ground above the hole to hoist himself out, when something pushed him back into the hole. He emitted a small yelp, and then looked up. Three white boys looked back down at him, laughing.

"Hey, wot choo' do'eeng out so late, compadre?" one of them, with short dark blonde hair said, mimicking a Hispanic accent.

"Leave me alone" Magnet mumbled, standing back up. His back was coated in dirt.

"What?" continued the blonde kid, "You out heere loo-keeng fir a yob?" Magnet stared at him.

"Don't choo remember yo' eeng-lees?" said another kid, one with blackish hair. The tree of them laughed.

"Fuck off," Magnet growled, hoisting himself out on the other side of the hole. I don't need this!

"Whot 'choo gonna do, wetback? Run back to Meh-hee-co?"

Magnet's face flushed a bright red, and it felt like steam was coming out og his ears. He wanted to punch them, hurt them all, but he knew better. Exhaling slowly, he turned to walk back to the tent.

"ANDELE! ANDELE!" one of the boys started yelling, laughing, "ARRIBA! ARRIBA! ANDELE! ANDELE!"

"OO-WEE! A SPICY BURRITO!"

"EL NINTENDO!"

Magnet stopped, dead in his tracks. His anger was boiling.

"You know?" he recognized the blonde kid's cocky voice without turning around. The kid dropped the accent. "It's amazing the government lets you illegal aliens in the country." And the laughter started again.

Magnet spun around, "at least my mother wasn't some two-cent whore-"

"Yeah yeah, go back your opium fields, ya dirty Mexican."

"Dominican Republic, jackass," Magnet replied through clenched teeth. They laughed a second longer, and then the blonde kid stepped forward, his eyes pierced Magnet's.

"Yackass? You think I'm a yackass? I show you yackass right here!"

Magnet was on his knees with a stinging pain in his stomach that made him gasp. The blonde kid gave him a swift uppercut, hard, in the soft bare flesh of his stomach.

"HOW YOU LIKE THAT, WETBACK?!"

One of them kicked him in the chest, and he fell backward, smacking his head on the ground, and cried out in pain.

"Grab his arms!" one of the kids said. He couldn't tell who. Then he screamed again as one of them dragged him into an upright position, then twisted his arms back, sharply. His shoulders felt like they were lit on fire; and he could almost feel the tendons in his joints rip.

"Awwwe! Did we hurt 'choo?" blondie was mimicking the accent again.

They punched him. They kicked him. Minutes passed like hours. He squirmed, trying to sing his arms and fight back, but he couldn't. All he could do was scream and cry and wish for it all to be over soon, or that he'd die sooner, (one or the other) as he watched bruises and welts form on his body. He wished he'd have put a shirt on.

What hurt the most, even more than when one of them kicked him in the groin – where all he could do was screech and cry at that – was the never-ending stream of insults and slurs they poured on him.

"DIRTY MEXICAN!" "WETBACK!" "BARRIO-FUCKER!" "JIG!"
He winced at them all. Finally, the one kick let his shoulders go, and he fell back again, screaming, crying, and yelling for help from anyone. The sand and the dirt scraped his back and neck.

And then one of the boys' heavy boots crashed down on his shoulder, and he swore he could hear it crunch. He screamed, his whole body flinching.

"-GO BACK TO MEXICO!"

"-GO MAKE A TORTILLA!"

"-CUBAN COMMUNIST MOTHER-"

A gunshot. And it stopped.