I am returning to Earth today.

      Laurence called me into his office. He was pleased with the progress of my training sessions with the former servitors of Stone, but it was time to turn our attention back to the humans. The words came as a relief to me. I have felt so detached since leaving Earth. Laurence's plan was to start small. He had his eye on a small town on the east coast - Madison, Rhode Island. My orders were to restore safety and faith there and let in grow outwards. To assist me I was to bring Leah, and eight of the new Sword recruits I had been training. In a bit of good luck I was also able to find Malcolm, who agreed to join us in this endeavor.

      Thursday, June 5th 1997

      We descended from Heaven into a field near the edge of town. There was no one around, but it didn't look like my idea of the end of the world. It was sort of peaceful. I took a deep breath - glad to be home. Malcolm pointed us in the right direction and soon we were on the main road into town. As we walked into town we noticed some fortifications were built up at the city limits. There had been some fighting here, but not recently. The buildings in town were boarded up. Many looked vacant. There was no sign of people out on the streets, but it didn't look deserted either. We split up to look for townspeople. Everyone was told to create a disturbance in the symphony if there was trouble. Malcolm and I headed for the church.

      The church, like many other buildings in town had been completely boarded up. It was also looked closed with a padlock. Not finding a better entrance, we broke the lock and ventured within. It smelled awful, the stench of death, but not fresh death. No one had been in the church for weeks it appeared. The place was a mess. We found a corpse which was probably the remains of the preacher. We cleaned the place and made preparations to cremate the body. Leah returned with news that she had located some townspeople. Many were hiding away in their homes, but they had set up a make-shift medical triage center at the school. We gathered all eleven of us back together and went to check out the school.

      Dozens of people lay around the school in various states of injury. Malcolm and I spoke to Dr. Winters who was clearly in charge of the medical effort. She told us about the town's greatest needs - basically food, communication with other towns, and safety from outside dangers. Dr. Winters was very busy at the moment so we kept it short for the time being. I dispatched two angels to see if they could take one of the boats out on a fishing expedition, and I sent Leah and two others to reinforce and construct the towns fortifications. Then I lent a hand with some simple first aid.