(2nd Prize Winner 2005 Falkirk Writers Circle Trophy Competition)

They said on the news that this would be the New Year to end all new years, the whole world was to be joined in the largest celebration since the turn of the century. We'd made it fifty years into the 'new' century and although we would not see another, we were to live it up and prove that even in the face of death, we could dance like no-one was watching, and truly live like there was no tomorrow.

I wouldn't be partying though. For me, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day would just be another day of the same old routine, in the same place. I was allowed to watch the celebrations, but like those around me, I was not allowed to participate. It didn't matter that the world was due to end in less than twenty eight weeks, those who were infected were to remain in isolation, it would be unfair, so they said, to risk infection to others and ruin their last days with the pain of the disease, instead it would be us, the carriers whose last days would be ruined.

I'd grown used to the sterile environment I called home, but I don't think I've ever grown used to the isolation. Day after day with only an intranet to amuse me, we weren't even allowed the internet, it wasn't as if the damn infection could spread down the phone line, but still, it wasn't a luxury our 'hospital' provided. The extent of my social contact was with those also infected, my fellow inmates on this great floating prison. There weren't that many of us left now, we were the resilient few, most withered away and died agonising deaths, not us, we carried the disease but after a brief period of showing symptoms, we did not succumb to it. Some had the audacity to call us lucky, as if living like rats in a cage was somehow better than death.

In a way I was pleased that by some cosmic joke we'd be able to call an end to the human race. We were due to be hit by a meteor and that would be it, after years of trying to figure out a solution to our oblivion the scientists had eventually admitted defeat, with our space program having been stalled since the beginning of the century we couldn't even allow the human race some survivors and to me, that seemed fair enough. I'd studied enough history to realise that on the whole, the human race didn't deserve survival.

Of course, the religious left scattered across the globe immediately called for the world to pray for our survival, that God would intervene, but no God had intervened and now we stood, on the brink of our own destruction and with the world riddled with disease, poverty and war, they partied and celebrated the year which would bring with it the end to our world. To me, it felt like justice. I'd been locked up in isolation for ten years and I'd seen a lot happen in those years. Leaders had come and gone, conflict had broken out and people had died. All we did was repeat history, time after time. It was as if the human race were incapable of original thought or action and for every step forward we seemed to take, we took ten back.

The nature of the infection which coursed through my veins was manmade, and made in such a way as to defy cure. It was of course another part of the war effort, I forget which war now and to be honest, I doubt it matters which petty conflict it was created for, the fact was, it was created and it was used and after that, the world had changed. It had spread like wildfire, millions had died. It was another holocaust, indiscriminate and deadly. It did however pass and was contained to the Island formerly known as 'Great Britain'. What was left were the few survivors, the carriers of this godforsaken disease and let it not be said that the world leaders are inhumane, no; they decreed that the Island should be in whole isolated and existing hospitals used to house the carriers. They would be cared for, given a place to live and a place where they would be under constant medical attention.

I laughed at the memory of it all, 'cared for', yes, like animals in a cage. For our luck of only carrying the infection we were treated as sub-standard people, fed three times a day and provided little else. Sure, we had entertainment, television, our intranet, our books - but we weren't allowed to live, we had to be monitored. I laughed again, the propaganda was that we were watched for our own good, so we did not suffer but that wasn't the real reason, they wanted to know why we didn't die. We were studied, like lab rats and no doubt, in some far off laboratory, they re-engineered the disease, proving that we are destined by some insane fate to repeat our shameful history over and over.

But the meteor was going to stop that. In the year 2050, the planet known as Earth would cease to be. The disease would be gone. I'd be gone, my friends and our captors would be gone. It made everything seem so irrelevant. The news on the TV spoke of politics, of sport - none of this mattered now, we were standing in the face of death and continuing blindly as if we were ignorant to the shadow in the sky, as if one day it would just go away and life would go on.

I suppose some people really do believe that. That it's not true, that one day they will wake up and this whole nasty business will be over. I can almost sympathise with them, I felt like that once too. Once upon a time, I believed that soon all it would all be over, that I could home and that life would return to normal, but I soon learned that as much as reality hurts, it is unlikely to change. I accepted my fate, yet as I watched the parties and the fireworks broadcast across every television network I could see that very few have accepted the fact that just like me, they are dying.

As I moved to switch the television off, a breaking news report flashed across the screen. War had broken out in Europe, the armies were gathering and images of explosions, not very dissimilar to the fireworks of less than an hour earlier were now shown to the ever-greedy audience. People were dying. Live on our screens and I felt that I was probably the only one who cared. Even in these last futile days, the human race had found one more petty reason to kill each other over. In the face of our own apocalypse, of our very judgement day, we still found the time to not only judge others, but take their lives and freedom in the same way as done for centuries before. It probably wasn't a bad thing that some cosmic force would end it all for us before we managed to end it all ourselves.

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