Había sido un día de trabajo tranquilo en la madriguera-consulta del doctor Casdan Baituo, un apasionado conejo dentista. Aquel día les tocaba trabajar mañana y tarde, pero la mayoría de los casos que atendieron fueron simples. El último paciente anuló la cita, así que además pudieron dar de mano antes, y ver al penúltimo con más calma y tiempo que de costumbre.
Casdan trabajaba con Cotton, un asistente dental novato. T

I was alone at my burrow. It was past midnight. I had just finished my work for the day, and I was cleaning up my lab room before going to sleep.
I was working on some digestion simulations. Being the smart and cunning rabbit I was, I had been able to get a bottle of hydrochloric acid power cleaner from humans. Hydrochloric acid is naturally present in the gastric juices of all the animals, so I had used it to prepare some gastric juices simulations in glass jars, and I was doing experiments wit

La lluvia había estado cayendo torrencialmente sobre el Parque Nacional de Doñana. La primavera suele ser lluviosa en los lugares de clima mediterráneo. La intensa lluvia y el gran río Guadalquivir habían inundado las marismas, que ahora semejaban un estanque infinito. Estaban cubiertas de vegetación por primera vez en casi un año. Había sido un invierno especialmente seco. El paisaje había pasado de una tierra yerma y cubierta de gr

Mina's pregnancy had been, overall, very comfortable. At the age of 27, she was expecting her first child: a baby boy. She had been happily married to her husband Roger for a few years. The couple had decided nine months earlier that the moment for their first kid had arrived, and Mina got pregnant on the first attempt. They were one young, happy, healthy and fertile couple.
Mina's pregnancy had been as bearable and free of issues as a woman could desire. Her morning sickness and heartburn had s

On a lazy summer afternoon, Daniel's aunt and uncle went to his house for a quick visit. They both were on holidays, and they were leaving the town to spend the rest of the summer on the coast, where they owned a little apartment. They had an excellent relationship with Daniel's parents, so they stopped by to tell them goodbye and share a coffee before leaving. They brought their only child with them: a 10-month-old baby girl, whose name was Julia.
Daniel was 6 years old, and he had a 9-year-old

"Come back here, Rick!", I heard one of my siblings calling me. "Obey mom!".
But I didn't listen. I got out of our burrow and I ran away. I was eager to explore the outside world all by myself.
I had a loving and caring mother who had strictly forbidden me to leave the burrow alone until I was old enough. But I, as a rebellious young rabbit, didn't want to obey her, and I escaped when I felt like it. My mother was out, so she couldn't prevent it. I didn't really care about what her reaction wo

For some years, it almost looked like European rabbits were going to become extinct. Myxomatosis, a devastating disease which is able to kill over 90% of the infected rabbits, was affecting all of Western Europe: their whole range of distribution. Luckily for the cute little bunnies, natural selection helped them, and after some terrible years, those who carried genes of immunity against myxomatosis survived and repopulated everything. Fewer rabbits meant fewer predators and more food available

It was the 14th century. A cog was sailing across the Baltic Sea, carrying beer barrels. The Hanseatic League was a commercial organization dependent on such vessels. This one was sailing from Danzig to Lübeck, in modern day German waters. They were expected to arrive in Lübeck next morning, to leave the beer and load some salted fish and iron goods.
Back in medieval times, rats were really a problem, and especially on ships. It's hard to imagine how much food or goods were lost to rat

PROLOGUE
It was a calm and hot summer day. Lewis, an 8-year-old boy, was walking around his suburban, gardened neighbourhood. He went to a pond near his house. He was an animal lover, so he went there wanting to see little aquatic animals, like frogs and tadpoles.
He squatted next to the pond, under a willow's shadow. He saw a bunch of tadpoles under some rushes. He put his hand into the water and tried to catch some of them, but they swam away too fast.
Suddenly, something caught his attention.

(The lecture room is rather small, and everything in it looks old. All the furniture is made in dark wood. Paintings on canvas cover the walls, and red carpets cover the floor. The seats are covered in velvet, and they are stepped. It is late in the afternoon, so very little sunlight enters through the windows. The light in the room is yellowish and rather tenuous. Around thirty people, mostly college students, are present).
(The stage is on the lowest part of the room. It is a simple space amo

Reuben sighed a breath of exhaustion as he dropped off the latest find of chestnuts in his storeroom. The squirrel had barely enough food stored for the next week let alone for the entire winter.
Reuben's mood sunk and he felt a cold sweat of panic through his veins.
Had Daisy been taking a larger share than normal lately? Or had he just been careless and misplaced the food he found?
Reuben wondered if any of the other squirrels had managed to collect enough to make it through the winter.
Either

You are a newborn bird, so young that you still have no feathers.
It is a hot, summer afternoon. The world is a dangerous place for you. Many, if not most baby birds, don't reach adulthood. It seems like this is going to be your case, because you've just fallen from your nest.
You lie on the ground, on your chest, somewhere in a little park, in a little town. You are beneath your tree's shadow, and only for that you have avoided death by suffocation. The day is being really hot.
You are almost