Hey! two weeks ago or was three weeks ago, I saw a documentary about symbolic relation in my biology class and boy, was it disturbing. At the start, it was ok but once it was near the end it began to get a bit gross, especially with the insects. I then remembered that Raph2k3 has a fear of bugs and I was curious of his reaction and thus, the creation of this one shot!

I will also be working on Two Worlds Collide later on and then Alone, so don't worry about a thing.

Anyway hope you enjoy this~

Disclaimer: I own nothing


Raph's rarely in a good mood and today, he just so happened to be in a good mood. His brothers were all occupied by their own things: Leo's training in the dojo, Don's experimenting in his lab and Mikey's cooking in the kitchen. So this means none of them will be bugging him too much, and… free TV!

Yes, the TV. The only thing in the lair that had actually been occupied by the residents of the lair (or entirely by Mikey) for 24/7, and today Raph can finally have it all for himself. He's going to enjoy every moment of it.

Raph sat back and got comfy on the couch. And with the remote in his hand, Raph turned on the TV. The first thing Raph expected to be on-screen was at least something to do with Ancient Samurai movies (Leo watched the TV last time), but instead, there was a lone tortoise walking by the riverside and beside the tortoise was a tree, consisting a flock of birds. Raph thought about changing the channel, but he figured it could be a nice thing to learn some stuff about their late 'cousins'. After all, this is looks like documentary? Right? Raph continued to watch until the tortoise stopped walking. The tortoise then lifted his head high and his feet spread out firmly.

'Now that the tortoise had given the signal, the finches are ready to carry out the deal…'

"What signal?! Ain't that tortoise just stretching?!" Raph asked no one in particular. The next thing that happened was something Raph didn't expect; the birds, now confirmed as finches, had all flown onto the tortoise and began repeatedly pecked the tortoise's leather skin. Raph thought the finches were attempting to attack the defenceless tortoise, but what he was about to hear just made him wish he could wash his skin.

'The finches are now cleansing the tortoise's skin from the parasitic insects and tics. In this way, not only the tortoise can be cleaned, the finches are also able to be fed…'

Raph swear he could feel a chill going through his spin right now. Not only that, Raph felt violated. Tortoises do not have tics or bugs on their skin! That's just wrong in so many level! Growling under his breath, Raph huffed as he fast-forwarded the documentary. Just hopefully no more of this stupid nonsense would happened again.

As if the TV or the remote had a mind of its own, the fast-forwarding stopped, showing a scene of a snail on a branch instead of a tortoise and the finches. Wait a minute. Isn't this supposed to be a documentary of a tortoise?! Why is there a snail instead?! And what the heck is wrong with its tentacles?!

Well, the snail's tentacles usually have a nice brownish colour like the rest of the snail's body, but in this case, the tentacles was spewing out multi-colours inside, mainly green, white and red. Raph couldn't help but to feel disturbed this. Maybe he should change channel before things get nasty? Yeah, he like the sound of that.

Before anything in the TV happened, Raph pressed the channel changing button-only it didn't change channel. Confused by this, Raph pressed the button again. And again. And again. And again… Why isn't it changing channel?! Seemingly desperate, Raph frantically pressed the button again.

"Are ya kidding me?!" Raph screamed irritatingly. Unfortunately, like turtle luck running through the form, Raph realised that the remote was rigged or something. Or maybe it's just simply broken, but he was too late to escape the most spin-chilling and the grosses words to be ever heard:

'These type of snails are different; they are known as the zombie snails. Controlled by parasitic worms, they are neither dead nor alive. Their brain are completely taken over by the parasite and are doomed to follow the parasite's will…'

Zombie snails?! That's just messed up! And Raph thought the tortoise and the finches relation was wrong. Suddenly, Raph felt sick; as if he ate nothing but candy all day or if he ate a whole bag of salt. As his face twisted in disgust, Raph still continued to press the buttons, hoping god can spear him from this madness. But nevertheless, he still wasn't able to escape the horror of this so-called 'documentary'.

'In order to spread it's seeds, the parasite had taken the snail to an open area where the predator had already laid its target on…'

Just as the narrator had mentioned, the possessed snail slowly crawled out into an open area where a lone bird stared at it. Not wanting to know what next, Raph decided to change the channel for good. And with another press of button, the channel never changed. Snarling under his breath, Raph had just enough this documentary nonsense; with the remote gripped firmly in his hand, Raph proceeded to toss the stupid hunk of junk away, only for it to be stopped abruptly in a jolt. Raph remembered Splinter's warning from last night; if he ever break something again, he would be grounded for a week. But Raph can't get grounded! At least not because of a stupid documentary! Sighing irritatingly, Raph dropped the remote on the couch. But now, Raph is vulnerable to what he was about to hear and see:

'Now that the bird had eaten the snail and the parasite, the parasite can began to spread its seeds through the bird's excretion…'

Excretion?! Doesn't that mean sh#t?! Turning into a different shade of green, Raph saw the entire thing, whether he like it or not. The bird came out of its hiding place and swooped in. It landed beside the infected snail and began to eat the poor organism alive. In the next scene, it shows another bird soaring through the air, but it also happened to drop what Raph think is the 'excretion'. The 'excretion' or a white pile of infected poop splattered across the ground, and predictably, another snail just so happened to be around and crawled over to the poop. Raph turned away, dramatically gagging as the snail ate the infected pile.

Oh god! He did not have to see that! That had to be the most scarring thing he ever seen in his life! What does a turtle have to do to get some good quality TV time?! And why the shell does this always happened to him?! Suddenly, he want to punch someone, but he knew better; so he grabbed the first thing within his reach, a pillow, and clutched onto it, like he was strangling someone. He then did the one thing he never thought of doing, but it seemed appropriate for it to be done. He pulled the pillow by his face and screamed in agony. So much for having a good mood…

Soon Raph released the pillow from his grasp and thrown it aside. Hopefully Mikey or Leo didn't see that and that was the last of the documentary, but he should've known better; on screen, it shows a young man sleeping comfortably on his bed in the dark. That wasn't the disturbing thing, in fact it's what he's going to see that's going to make his stomach somersaulting.

'Tapeworms are used by humans for dietary hundreds of years ago, but none realized that these parasites had caused death to their hosts…'

Much to Raph's distaste, one could clearly see something white wiggling under the man's nose. Soon the mysterious white thing completely squirmed out of the nose, revealing what appears to be a white worm. A really long white worm. Raph watched in horror as the white worm or the tapeworm, crawled off the man's face and onto the bedside.

Oh man… Raph was wrong. That has to be the most scarring thing to be ever seen in his life. And besides that, did humans seriously used this worm for dietary?! Humans are nuttier than he thought! Suddenly Raph felt sick. Like he could just puke anytime soon. Raph groaned as his stomach rumble in misery

"Dudes, it's dinner time!" Raph heard Mikey calling. Raph sighed as he left the couch and into the kitchen. As Raph entered the kitchen and sat down by the dinner table, the other residents of the lair came in; Don was silently reading one of his chemistry book, Leo had a towel over his shoulder and Master Splinter had a cup of green tea in his hand.

When everyone settled down, Raph stared at his dinner, a plate of freshly cooked Spaghetti Bolognese and a cup of squeezed orange juice. Raph reached for the cup and slowly drank the nutritious juice. He enjoyed the soothing taste of vitamin C down his throat, but all good things must come to an end as he heard the following conversation:

"Donatello," Master Splinter began "Put down your book. You may read it after we finished."

"Sorry sensei," Don apologized, "This book's just too exciting for me to put down. I mean look at this!" Don then showed Splinter the content of the book; it showed the different type of test tubes in a middle of an experiment, including the chemical mixtures inside it. The chemicals were bright green, blue and lots more. Funny, the colours resembles to th- th- the zombie snails!

Suddenly, inside of Raph's mind exploded with multiple images which included, the snail's tentacles and the snail feeding off the bird's excretion. Raph whimpered as he nearly choked on his beverage, and his stomach began to feel queasy.

Unknown of the red masked turtle's discomfort, Mikey joined in to chat. "Wow, check out the shiny colours!" Mikey cheerfully pointed out.

"Yeah, that's the beauty of it." Don agreed. It's almost like those two can talk about this forever, but luckily for Raph, Leo decided to stop it.

"Mikey, Donny, why don't you talk about this after we finished eating?" Leo suggested

"Yeah I guess so." Don answered as he put the book away. Raph silently thanked God for finally sparing him from this madness. For now. Raph put down the cup and grabbed a fork. He twisted the spaghetti, only to stop when he noticed that the spaghetti looked a bit off...

"Mikey, tell me why ya turn this spaghetti white." Raph asked, bringing up his spaghetti up. Don and Leo checked theirs too, only to find them white. In fact, all the spaghetti are white!

"Oh that!" Mikey exclaimed. "You know how food dyes can turn food red, blue or green?" The others nodded in response. "Well, I don't think anyone ever turn their food white with food dye, so I thought that maybe I can use the food dye to turn the food white."

"So you used the spaghetti?" Leo asked.

"Well yeah! I just found them lying around, all alone and collecting dust. I gotta use them."

"That's great and all, Mikey." Don began, looking somewhat uncertain. "But- eh, next time please use something else."

"Why?"

"Well-eh first, it resembles something gross..."

"Oh dude, you mean a tapeworm?"

"Uh..."

"I always thought it looks like them. Some poor fella might actually imagine them as tapeworms. You know, how it squirm in your bowl and stuff, the way how it's still alive and slimy as you slowly suck them in your mouth. And then it wiggles inside your body. Man, I should totally use this for Halloween! I bet I can scare the crap out of April!" Mikey laughed at his own sick joke as Leo and Don stared at him, completely unamused. Splinter's ears twitched in displeasure, but nevertheless he began eating his meal.

Raph however, was the poor fella Mikey mentioned before; he looked down onto his meal and unintentionally imagined the spaghetti as tapeworms. The 'tapeworms' were alive and squirmy just as Mikey depicted it. Some were on top of themselves in the bowl while some were on his fork, trying to get into his mouth. It was probably there when he remembered the scene in the documentary; the way how the tapeworm left its unsuspecting host in the dark. Raph paled slightly as his stomach grumbled in the most unsatisfying way. Oh god, he's gonna blow.

It was there when everybody heard the fork dropped in a thud. All eyes turned to the red-masked turtle in confusion as Raph stand up with hands covering his mouth. Raph then bolted out of the kitchen in the fastest pace anyone ever seen him do, leaving his entire family staring at his back. After that, one could clearly hear the loud slam of the bathroom door and the gut-groaning moans and the continuous splashing droplets against the toilet water. The remaining Hamatos in the kitchen all stared at each other before Mikey asked the one question he'd been wondering;

"Did I say something wrong?"


Poor Raph. Most of the symbolic relation are exactly the same as the documentary I saw, except for the tapeworm one. I made up that scene and I think something like that is actually true. And for the food dye part, I'm not that sure if anyone ever turn their food white. I know that there's the icing, but I'm no cook and I don't really know that much about cooking, so don't blame me!

If I had all the facts about the tapeworm and the food dye wrong please PM me about it.

But for now, please review.

Bye~