Hi, this one is my entry for Conceptart.org COW #111.

On great libraries across the world and along the centuries, enormous quantities of all kinds of books have been stored. The written record of the history of mankind along time. It begun when the first man put the first words on a stone slab. History only exists since writing exists.

Since the moment sheets of parchment or papyrus were utilized to make books in great numbers, one small creature evolved to feed on them. This bat-like flying nemesis found a new habitat hiding on great libraries, among the bookshelves, feasting on the books and stealing capital episodes of our history simply because there were recorded only on a few pages, easily devoured, changing the course of events just because there was no way else of knowing better. These creatures ate through whole volumes about Atlantis, erasing its real location, its art and customs. About the tomb of Alexander the Great, the templars, the Holy Grail and the Catarus. The coming of extraterrestrial ships to ancient Egypt and the Mayan empire... All episodes forever lost to us.

Perfectly adapted to their unique environment, these book eaters developed a kind of camouflage, black markings on their bodies resembling letters on paper, merging their silouettes against open volumes. Using their wings to fly from one library to another, the world was completely oblivious to their existence.

At the time one of these creatures was discovered, he was happily munching through page 111 of a lone book of memoires of Cristopher Columbus, who was telling future readers about who was the real discoverer of the new world, who told him America was there. Nobody will learn the truth now. The creature was later known only as 111, because there was no other copy of that page.

That small mammal had in fact the power of changing history. Depending entirely on the existence of someone to tell about it, if you destroy the words of the past, you change the future.

Hope u like it.