He opens his eyes.
The glow from the fire immediately pierces through his brain. No! This can't be possible! This is not his destiny! He whips his head around frantically in search of an exit, the powdery wig upon his head swaying back and forth with the motion.
Outside, an old man struggles to walk through town. His will has been broken for many many years and now he barely can muster up the strength to leave the junk pile that he can hardly call a home. Now there's no coming back for him, not since that fateful day of the fall that broke him both physically and mentally. Nonetheless, he has still gotten used to being ogled by the townsfolk at fist as he limps around Gravity Falls with his torn overalls and scruffy, white, beard dragging along the ground, carrying whatever advanced contraption made from various scrap metal in the junkyard, and every time he never remembers the purpose of inventing it. Pretty soon, the people in town get used to him as well. Some regard him as the town nut who inhabits the junkyard and steals children and animals. A likely story. Most of the time the children and animals willingly go to find him. He appreciates what few friends he has at his age. They almost make him feels as he is young again. Not that he wants to go back to the way things were when he was at a certain young age. All of his old friends from back then he abandoned long ago in favor of only one. Nowadays he has no idea where that one is. He is not entirely sure he even wants to know. Their last encounter is but a memory that he'd unlikely forget as much as he wants to. It's the whole reason he lives the way he does. And he will keep the consequences of his ex-lover's actions within both mind and body as they haunt him wherever he goes. One day he decides that enough is enough. He's gone through too much torture than he should ever have been able to handle. Now is the time. Gravity is falling and it's time for the world to finally end and he will end it all himself. That is how he finds himself walking (albeit with difficulty) toward the south side of town to where it all happened. For the longest time as he tiredly treks on his glance has been cast downward at the evening shadows just starting to appear on the ground. But as he approaches his destination he is able to muster up enough strength to lift his gaze to the now-purple sky to see the rusted water tower looming within it.
Ford begins to sweat beneath his wig. There seems to be no way out of this hell. Then he spots the one opening leading directly to the outside world in the entire room: the window at the end. He stands up from the only chair in the room and makes his way carefully toward the window. His high-heels creak threateningly over the floorboards and with every step in them he has to lift the frills on his dress higher. When he peers out the window, he sees the same thing, Gravity Falls. Except it's not the same, in fact a lot has changed since he last saw outside. From looking out the window, he does not look down from his great-niece and nephew's bedroom in the attic of the Mystery Shack. Instead he glowers down from one of the apartments three stories high onto downtown Gravity Falls. Other than that, things should be the same, right? The supermarket, Lazy Susan's, and the Pizzamatronic sit all in a row straight across the street corner just as he remembers. The rest of the shops, diners, and halls line all sides of the street the rest of the way. In the distance he can see the faint outline of the piles of trash in the Gravity Falls town dump. They say a rabid animal lives in there and will steal your liver to sell on the black market if one strays too close. He's recorded every single supernatural being he ever witnessed around town and nowhere in any of his four journals does there appear to be a mysterious junkyard creature. Still, the rare occasion when he does happen to pass by the dump, he feels an unexplainable, unsettling feeling that he passes off as a reaction to the trash heap's horrid stench. So why does everything feel so strange and different?
Everything looks different in design as if he's been pulled into a parallel universe. The colors of every object he focuses on outside are much brighter and more saturated than he remembers, as if photo-shopped. Apart from that, the entire scene from the street corner to the horizon and enormous sky has a sort of magical glint. Everything seems to emanate a shining light from the outside without being shone on by the sun. This world doesn't need a sun. That must be why there is no sun. Just to check, he looks up into the multicolored sky once more to confirm that there indeed is no ball of fiery gas.
That's when he notices something else wrong with this picture. Not only is there no sun, but in its place is what looks to be a blazing meteor heading straight for the U.F.O. hill above the ridge! The flying rock bursts with all kinds of shades in the sky, bringing a full-on aroura borealis. Ford thinks to himself, so that's what is bringing on the strange emphasis on color. He wonders, could this be all because of him as well? He must warn someone immediately. He looks down at the townspeople walking around the street, going about their daily business.