The eve of the new two thousand hundredth year . Tongues of fire dance in the fireplace, the forest can be seen in the window, the chirping of birds and the smell of pine needles fills the room. A man is sleeping in the middle of the room, swaying slightly on an air cushion. The system clicks and the first rays of the sun appear outside the "window". 
It somehow helps to forget that the area of the apartment is only eight square meters, although by the standards of two thousand ninety-nine it is gorgeous. In addition, the apartment does not go deep into the ground or float in the air, it is a comfortable twenty-eighth floor. The smart home system has long been transformed into a smart building system. Each room is perfectly sound- and heat-insulated, communication with the outside world goes through walls that are not really walls, these are huge plasma panels. The expression "going to work" has long been a meme, rather, work comes to the house. The capsule house was based on the research of human life in space. A circular, waste-free biosystem. Food and clothing are delivered via an elevator system to the entire house, the necessary medicines are delivered in the same way, and if medical sensors from the wrists or ankles are triggered, emergency medical care is provided by robot doctors. Chemically synthesized oxygen is supplied through thin tubes, photosynthesis has long been lacking for the life support of mankind. Carbon dioxide is used for the biosynthesis of primitive organic matter. All technological processes have also been robotic for a long time, factories operate deep in the earth. 
Protos has not left the room for a long time, the thin air is life-threatening. And the picture outside the house was bleak: the land was flooded by ninety–eight percent, humanity was huddled on a small island - a Noo smaller than modern Japan. Protos is not distracted from his work by his wife or children. In such conditions, the birth of children is strictly controlled, cells are taken from completely healthy donors, then the growth and development of children goes in artificial cuvettes. 
"Will there be a future for humanity?" That was the question Protos asked himself, turning off the plasma in the evenings and lying in complete darkness and silence. A person has become too dependent on life support systems, any failure of the system, any minimal error will lead to the death of not a single person, but of all mankind.
Protos and his team have been working on the Island project for the past few years. The fact is that in the two thousand fiftieth year, volcanologists learned how to safely cause volcanic activity by controlled underground nuclear explosions. This is how the first land artificially created with the help of volcanoes appeared. Naturally, similar studies were conducted on the other side of the globe in order to protect the population of Leo from the effects of volcanic eruptions and seismic tremors. And so, the first successes. Bacteria took root on the island, and then chemosynthetic plants. Each grew on its "own" chemical element, without interfering with others. The whole island is covered with plants of bizarre shapes and shades. But there was one problem, the height of the plants did not exceed a meter. How many living forms could such an island feed?
And then a team of scientists led by Protos had the idea to populate the island with small living creatures. Evolutionarily, they do not lose, but rather win against large creatures. Less food is needed for nutrition, less oxygen for breathing. 
At first, the problem was the genetic material. All available genetic material is bacteria, chemosynthetic plants, a small amount of algae, fungi and ... human dna.  Through numerous experiments on genomic editing and karyotype maps of animals preserved from studies at the beginning of the century, hairy, horned, scaly, winged life forms were created again. These were not exactly the animals that lived a hundred years ago, a kind of bestiary of the two thousand hundredth year in a mini-format.
And here is the last step that humanity has not decided on in any way. The creation of little Adam and Eve. The island project could become a hope for them, it would help to push apart the walls of a narrow room, turn a small room into a palace, colored boulders into a jungle, a small island into the whole universe. But how to throw a modern technocratic man, literally raised within four walls, into a new jungle? How to reconcile the mind and the new environment? 
The long-extinct ancestor of man, who lived more than fifty thousand years ago, was spinning in a three-D format. He was about a meter tall, but he was going to get even smaller, much smaller. In the event of a disaster on the Leo, this was the only chance for human survival. And, who knows, maybe these creatures will be able to go the other way and avoid the impasse that modern humanity has entered. 
Protos stood trembling at the plasma screen . The navigator guided the ship along a pre-planned route. The little furry bodies huddled together, but rather not from the cold, but from fear. For the first time, humanity had not to strive upward and upward, but to diminish in front of nature…