Up on the surface, water was steadily draining away - leaving the town sodden and cluttered, but still intact. It seemed, to the locality atop the courtroom, that the town had recovered nice and quickly. The gathering just figured the Pines had saved the day, and began excitedly chattering about the fact the catastrophe had been so short-lived.

Preston raised an eyebrow as he noticed where the water was flowing to. He squirmed a little in his bindings and muttered to his wife. "This could be a big problem."

"A problem?"

"A big problem."

Almost perfectly on cue, the ground tremored, terminating the tranquil titters of the townsfolk into tremulous talk of terminal terror. The courthouse shook, the cliffs quaked, and the local population of Hawktopi took to the skies.

All eyes turned to the looming presence of Northwest Manor. To their terror, it began to crumble.

"M-my home!" Preston yelled.

"McGucket's place!" Soos gasped.

"Our future haunted-house tourist-attraction!" Cutebiker despaired.

The central structure folded in on itself, the wings of the old lumber-borne mansion collapsing in unison, spilling out splinters of redwood and masonry. Age-old glass shattered, paintings and neglected hunting trophies spilling free, as the evil house - the house built from so much suffering and deception - returned to the land that had grown its lumber, that had cossetted those who died for it, that had raised every animal put on display within.

"Sweet dollars! My rare collection of hunting trophies that I never cared enough about to take with me yet am now scandalised regarding!" Preston sobbed. "Won't somebody think of the value?!"

"Dudes. Pretty sure the Pines were in there." The new Mr. Mystery chimed in. "You guys…you guys think they're alright?"

"T-they'll be fine! T-they're the Pines!" Cutebiker ventured. "A-and they've got Dan with them!"

"Dawg, I dunno, takes a lotta grit to like, survive a building collapse." Soos retorted. "Maybe we should uh- maybe we should get over there-"

Crack

It was a loud, hollow noise - the noise of two lumps of porous stone rubbing against each other. It echoed across the valley with purpose - a deep, throated tone that could literally mean absolutely nothing good.

The townspeople yelped as, below their feet, the entire ground-pad of the town suddenly dipped, by but a couple of inches.

A crack formed down the centre of the high-street, as the clouds above them seemed to grow darker by the minute. A searing blue light seemed to envelope them from underneath, pouring through manhole covers and grates with horrendous intensity.

Another crack - another couple of inches. A hollow rumble seemed to surround them, vibrating what was left of the puddled floodwater, the townspeople's confidence and decades of crumbling, poorly-designed, featureless architecture.

The rubble of the police precinct finally collapsed. The windows of 'Martin's Big Old Windows' broke. The smouldered husk of The Palourde Puante collapsed into a pile of really tacky, plaster-borne soot.

The town was shifting. Not a single building, not a single single entity - the entire town. It was sinking in shallow, creaking steps that released clouds of dust and a sliding, scraping noise that rattled teeth with every movement it felt.

"W-what's happening?!" Cutebiker barked. "This ain't in my Mayor's Manual!"

"Dude, from what I know, there's like…thousands of tunnels underneath Gravity Falls. You think this is, like, a collapse? A giant sinkhole dealy?"

"No way are we insured for that." Melody winced. "This could be trouble."

"The way I see it, I'd say we're already in trouble territory. Town must've gone a foot lower alrea-"

CRUNCH - the town sank further, and down came the fire escape from Barrels & Crates Incorporated, dropping some of its spare stock.

"Make that two feet." Blubs winced.

"Oh snap." Tad said, with his usual level of disconcertingly calm milieu.

The cracks grew wider, the entire town sagging slightly lower in its centre as it fought against the friction between cliff-face and bedrock. Plates could be heard crashing in Greasy's Diner, while a steady array of cracks, rumbles and tumbles echoed from the Gravity Falls Mall. The Northwest Mudflap factory's main stack fell like a gigantic domino. Up on Eyeball Hill, the Dinkies Factory - and thus, McGucket's new lab - began to rattle, the scaffolding from the repairs tumbling like matchsticks.

Then, it dislodged - and the town began to slowly slide down. Down into the gigantic footprint, miles wide, into what seemed to be an unfriendly, ethereal earth that shone in a rich blue tone. From every corner. To the townspeople's horror, each ridge and gap between the severed settlement was drenched in that strange blue glow, beginning to rumble and groan under the forces of what lurked beneath.

A shoot of curling, blue fern poured forth from beside Smokey Joe's All-You-Can Eat, tipping over the pizza cart and spilling umpteen slices of pepperoni-and-raccoon onto the grass - much to the ever-enduring disappointment of a portly man with an unshaven neck.

More bizarre, otherworldly foliage spat forth with vicious abandon and violence. The newly rebuilt Tate and Backle's Bait and Tackle collapsed like matchsticks. Perhaps, however, most violently, the statue of Nathaniel Northwest flew like an arrowhead, propelled by another enormous stalk. It careened into the water tower and demolished it, splintered wood and enormous iron hoops falling to the floor and striking the nearby gas station.

Whether it was the impact breaking a line, or sparks from the hoops scraping against the asphalt, nobody would be certain - but the station blew up with tremendous force, debris flying outwards as the underground tanks rendered themselves apart, every torn piece of earth quickly being filled with glowing blue knotweed.

The town was soon aflame, and still continuing its terrible march into the earth, becoming an overwhelmingly overgrown monster with extra-terrestrial hedgegrows taking foothold around it in an awe-inspiring, terrifying refrain.

Within time, each inch of the cliffs was wrapped in that spectral plantlife, curling upwards in thick lengths of ivy that pulsated and dripped in that terrible aquamarine slime. It coiled up hundreds of feet, grasping the clifftops and the Wentworth bridge in a tight stranglehold, the slathering, dripping vines acting as a slide for the town's severed asphalt-and-clay epicentre, accelerating its descent downwards and smoothing the motion until the town seemed to be losing sight of the sun. The lake drained further water, leaving a perturbed island head beast sitting atop its igneous chin and glaring at the stranded waterlife within.

A familiar smell of fennel - with a powerful undertone of ozone - seemed to drown the senses of every individual in the beleaguered town's population. Nobody knew how to react. Nobody knew what to say. Nobody could see an escape or an answer. Tree geese took to the skies in a horrified horde of honks, some freshly freed from their skins.

Finally, the sliding halted, the smouldering wreck reaching its final resting place. The stalks hummed and sang in a bizarre, muffled tone of xylophonic noise, as the wind travelled through their plump, glowing flesh.

Dark clouds began to swirl around the glowing mass of vegetation, rotating and whirling in a tempest that looked almost prone to causing another flood. Everybody looked up, frozen in fear, staring in vacuity-laden gazes at the skies as if expecting only further cataclysm to rend from above.

Smoke poured from the flaming wreckage, lit in brilliant blue by the terrible verdure.

"Well, dude, that wasn't so bad." Soos beamed.

Then Yumberjacks, no longer able to maintain its structural integrity, teetered and fell like a pack of playing cards, splaying across its broken drive-thru asphalt and spilling little Lumberjack toys forth like a tidal wave of tat.

"Oh. Yeah, okay, never mind, this is a disaster."