Heart racing. Eyes flicking back and forth as the room warped and changed around him, like a shapeshifting beast. When he was older, Leon would probably reflect on the absurdity of the thought of a room changing. But then, at that moment, all Leon knew was that the room was moving.

Doors swapped places, handles disappearing from sight, the staircase that he could have sworn was to the left was now to the right. He just needed to find the bathroom, how did he get here? It was dark out, yet somehow the bright white of the open hallway was blinding him. Maybe he was dreaming— but it all seemed so real.

He looked around desperately for his charmander, hearing its worried coos in the back of his head. No matter where he looked, he couldn't find his precious partner. He jumped at the sensation of warmth brushing past his calf, but he was too disoriented to find the flame of Charmander's tail. His ears rang and his eyes blurred, finally collapsing on the floor and burying his face into his hands to cry.

His own crying was cut short at the sound of different crying, two hands planted on his knees. When Leon removed his hands from his face, the room at the top of the steps was dark once more, the only light coming from Charmander's tail, which illuminated the room with a gentle glow. Sitting face to face with him was his three year old baby brother, cheeks wet with fat tears, his nose scrunched up as he cried.

"Hop, c'mon— don't cry, mate," Leon sniveled hard, clearing his own tears.

"You cryin'," Hop babbled back, pushing himself into Leon's lap the second Leon sat up straight, clinging to his shirt. He just let him, unsure what to do to calm his brother.

He heard the sound of footsteps climbing up steps from behind him, finally turning his head and locating the staircase he had lost previously. When their mother appeared at the top, she flicked a light on and looked down at the two. The second she made eye contact with Leon, Leon's facade started to crack.

Their mother was quick to pick Hop up in her arms, having to pry his fingers from Leon's shirt and leaving behind the crinkled visual of a Charizard head. He cried loudly at being pulled from his big brother, but she shushed him gently, bringing him back to his bedroom and laying him back down for bed. Leon was already a huffing mess when she returned to him, pulling him up to his feet by his hands.

"Leon, sweetheart…" she started, and Leon threw his head back at her tone. "You're eight years old, now… you can't be scaring Hop like this."

"I didn't mean to scare him. I just-… I was scared," he whimpered, biting down on his quivering bottom lip to stop himself from sobbing. His mother was quiet, looking down at their feet. Leon knew what she was thinking, and it tore his insides to shreds.

'It's about this being 'lost' thing again, isn't it?' She was thinking. She must also be thinking something along the lines of— 'can't he just stop this little game so I can have one night of peace-'

"It was that dream again, huh?" She asked. It was gentle, but the pejorative nature of the question was loud to Leon's ears.

"It wasn't a dream," he muttered. "I'm not playing pretend either."

"Well, honey…" she said quietly, walking Leon back to his room and sitting him down on the edge of his bed. She kneeled down, resting her hands over her lap. "No one gets lost in their own home. We've lived here your whole life."

"I just wanted to go to the bathroom," Leon said, nearly suffocating from the strenuous act of forcing back tears. Why wouldn't she take him seriously? He was so clearly stressed. Why would he play a game that made him so afraid?

"There's three doors upstairs, Leon angel. Your room, Hop's room, and the bathroom," she said. "Did you find it?"

Leon's face crumpled at her words, and his attempt at holding back his surplus of tears failed. He let out a hiccuping sob.

"No."

His mother sighed, obviously close to her wit's end, but desperate not to escalade the situation.

"Would it help if I put up a sign on the bathroom door?" She asked. Leon nodded. It would help. He could read.

"Okay, sweetheart. I'll do that. Just please try not to wake Hop up again, okay?"

Leon nodded again, accepting her tired kiss to his forehead, ruffling her hands through his hair. He knew she didn't mean to make him feel ropey with her accusations; she was doing the best she could as a still semi-newly single mother. The second she kicked their dad out of the picture, the house seemed that much lighter. But Leon was sure he was doing a proper job dimming the lights again.

When he decided to tread the currents back out into the hallway, still in need of the bathroom, the room stretched out in front of him— …stopping dead in its tracks as he zeroed in on a piece of paper neatly taped to one of the doors.

In his mother's curving cursive handwriting was the word 'loo'. A bit crass, but Leon found humor in it. He'd calmed enough by the time he exited said loo that he could tell his 50/50 shot at finding his own room had a high success rate, remembering that he'd left his door open. Their mother had closed Hop's door.

Intense moments like that didn't happen all the time, but his sense of direction failed him on the regular. His mother thought he was just playing around; dead set on performing his little prank so spectacularly instead of just admitting it was a joke and letting it die. But it wasn't a joke. It scared Leon more than he'd ever been scared in his life.

Flash forward a good three years. The house was littered with post-its and index cards stuck to walls and surfaces; loo, Leon's room, Hop's room, Mum's room, kitchen to the left, stairs to the right, et cetera. Directions were plastered around the entire building, and if even one was out of place, it threw Leon out of his loop of understanding so violently that he shut down.

Raihan and Sonia had laughed upon seeing it for the first time (after seeing Leon for the first time in over a year), but quickly realized the levity of the situation was truly more than they'd assumed when they were under their double digits. After all those years of Leon digging himself deeper and deeper into insanity over things, it was little six year old Hop that finally pushed their mother to consider the idea that perhaps Leon really wasn't playing a long term gag.

"Leon doesn't cry when he makes jokes," Hop said after their mother had blown a gasket at Leon for another breakdown that left him crumpled at the kitchen table, his head buried in his arms. "Why would he cry all by himself?"

It had caused their mother to briefly freeze before she ran an apologetic hand over Leon's head, then picked up the landline and disappeared somewhere within the house. Hop had sat at the table with Leon until he'd been okay enough to sit up straight again, then tugged him into the living room to play games.

"Leon," his mother's voice called gently a while later. Leon turned to her, and she gestured with a finger for him to come speak with her privately. Hop was good, he stayed where he was while Leon returned to her.

"I've got you a doctor's appointment this weekend. They're going to do some big tests on you, okay?" She asked, and Leon agreed. A bubble of anxiety sat in his chest until the day came, and they poked and prodded him like some sort of science project. Drew his blood, took x-ray images of his brain, flashed countless photos in his face, made him draw maps and write lists of words he could hardly remember. Leon was thoroughly exhausted by the end of it.

It took a phone call the next day for the doctor to spew a slurry of words through the landline that were so obscure sounding that Leon worried there was something else wrong with his brain.

"Developmental Topographical Disorientation," the doctor repeated through the line, slowly so that Leon's mother could attempt to write it down. "His brain doesn't make cognitive maps, even with the absence of brain damage. He's perfectly healthy otherwise."

"How can you know for sure?" His mother asked.

"The MRI scans gave us vital clues, as well as the way he answered our questions and cue cards. It's worse as a child; I'm sure it's awfully scary now, but it will get easier for him as he ages."

His mother thanked the doctor kindly, hanging up the phone and lingering by it. She raised a hand to her mouth, nibbling at the skin around her thumb, before finally turning to look at Leon. Her eyes were scrunched to squinting, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Without waiting a second longer, she bundled Leon up in her arms tightly, bawling into his shoulder.

"I'm-… I'm not dying, am I?" Leon asked, moreso in confusion than fear. His mother shook her head, her hand clasped at the back of Leon's.

"No. No, sweetheart," she gasped, tightening her grip on Leon with enough force that he thought his head might pop off his shoulders. "It's not that… I treated it like a joke for years. You tried to tell me so many times."

"It's okay, mum-"

"It's not okay. I let you down," she sobbed. Finally, she pulled away from Leon to look at his face. He could feel dampness on his shoulder from her tears. "I won't let you down again, though. We'll work on it. Together. All right?"

"All right."