The European Invasion

Due to a stagnant economy, staggering debt and a loss of alliance with the world, the United States found itself adrift and alone after gaffes and missteps in the Middle East. Large chunks of North American property were sold to newly allied Eastern European Bloc Allies for the purpose of oversea bases. One of them was several blocks from my house on a now razed National Park and historic mountain.

Construction began immediately, taking the form of a modern building of the Great Pyramids. Through high-powered binoculars one could see people dragging giant stones to create huge towers overlooking the land. And with these immigrating foreign soldiers came their families, their culture and their newfound imperialism. And their boxy vehicles and their grey skies.

It took four years for me to have my friend arrested in the lead up to the war, to save my parents' lives from rebel bullets, to fall in love with the enemy's daughter and to escape from my own country under attack with her.

Photograph by James Nachtwey/Magnum/TIME.com from the book "Inferno"