I had forgotten how vibrant colors were supposed to be! And everything had so many clear and intricate details, I couldn't stop admiring everything. The room decor wasn't very vibrant in and of itself, but it was still so much better than what I had been seeing before.

How the house actually looked didn't really surprise me. I knew the main floor was one big room, with the kitchen, dining room, and bathroom as the exception. I knew the couch was gray and there was a rug underneath it as well as a dark brown coffee table. I knew the space was really open and one of the walls was a large window.

What I didn't know was the pattern of the walls. I didn't know the design of the rug. I didn't know there were pictures hung up on the walls, mostly of me. I didn't know how big the TV was, or anything like that. But it still didn't surprise me. Not like my family continued to.

If I wasn't already absolutely certain my family were vampires, I would be doubting my conclusion now. They didn't have the classic vampire red eyes. Somehow, they were amber, or gold. It wasn't possible. In all my years, in all my lives, I never saw a vampire with anything other than red eyes. So why were they different?

My family didn't even act like vampires. I couldn't tell before, but now I saw they didn't even walk fast. They didn't stand unnaturally still. They blinked. They fidgeted. They did things vampires didn't need to. But surely they were vampires. They still had the tell-tale signs of being ones, despite their other peculiarities.

They were still deathly pale. They still had freezing, rock-hard skin. They still looked inhumanly perfect. They weren't human, that was for sure, and if they weren't vampires, I had no idea what they could be. So they had to be vampires, and I was not safe with them.

Now that I could see so clearly, I started to pay attention to where everyone was in the room. As always, I was never left alone during the day. The difference now was I could tell where in the room someone was, which lifted a significant amount of anxiety off my shoulders. I couldn't relax, but it helped to know where the danger was.

I sat in the living room with Dad and Uncle Jasper, who were playing a video game I didn't know the name of. Something with cars and theft or something. I only half paid attention, and only that much because the graphics looked cool. I hadn't seen clearly how video games progressed in more than ten years. It was intriguing to see how things had changed.

The other half of my attention went to the window, or more-so, out the window. Our front yard was a large field of grass, with trees surrounding all but where the driveway exited. The normally bright green grass was coated with white, as were the trees, and even the air. For the first time in a long time, I truly saw snow falling. It wasn't just a mess of white anymore. If I stood by the window, I would be able to see individual snowflakes. I could see the grass poking through the frosty coating. If I went outside I would be able to see snowflakes falling into my hands and melting. I could see the details. I didn't know until now how much I missed that.

The video game Dad and Jasper were playing wasn't very interesting to me, so I left the couch and walked up to my room.

My room's walls were a faint purple, with shelves of books and toys hanging on them. Of course my family, with seemingly infinite money, bought all the books they read me instead of going somewhere like the library, and they were taking up a lot of space. At some point they had to get rid of them, though. Right? I didn't want to grow up, if I grew up at all, and have all these kid books still in my room. Hopefully they didn't just throw them away and instead donated them.

My bed was in the far left corner and had baby blue and bright purple blankets set up to look nice and neat. A bunch of stuffed animals were set up on top of my pillow and against the wall, as if they were waiting for me to come back from school to see them.

Along the floor were smaller shelves that held baskets full of toys I had received over the years. Most of them were blocks. Like, a lot of them. Now that I could see, I should try to get more complex toys so I could actually occupy myself with more meaningful things.

I went over to the right side of my room where a window overlooking the backyard sat. The backyard was much smaller than the front, which didn't surprise me. The line of trees sat only yards from my window. The leaves were all dead and the branches were dusted in snow that looked like silver ashes. It was peaceful, and I could almost forget the danger my life was in.

"Tomorrow when the snow builds up more we can go outside and play in it," Mom's voice entered the room. I turned around to see her watching me with a smile in the doorway. Her eyes were shining, looking genuinely happy at the fact I could see the snow outside. Was she always this happy looking at me? I couldn't be sure.

I didn't nod or hum or do anything to signify my wanting to do that, despite me liking the idea. I just turned back to the window and stared at everything I could now see.

I saw sparrows flying near the house and in between some trees. They must not have been a breed of bird that migrated in the winter. I couldn't remember if that was true, but I could see them here, therefore I was probably right. Funny how after all this time, there were still things I wasn't sure about. It was fun, finding new things to learn about the world.

I spent the rest of the day walking around and looking at all the details I couldn't see before and watching the snow pile up outside. That night, when Mom read me a book before bed, I could actually follow along and look at the pictures. It wasn't interesting, but I liked that I could see what was happening.

When the lights went off and the world was dark, I could still see details. I wasn't totally blind – I could name each stuffed animal on my bed if I wanted to. But instead I fell asleep, for the first time certain Mom or anyone else wasn't in my room.

"Ready to go?" Dad asked me, looking ready to sprint out the door with or without me. He wore a heavy coat and thick jeans as if he could actually feel the cold outside, and I wore snow pants with thick socks and boots, a hat that fully covered my ears, and a big puffy jacket. We were going outside for me to fully experience the joys of snow. They didn't know I had plenty of happy memories in the snow, but I had no intentions of telling them. Even if I did talk, I wouldn't tell them.

Dad took my hand and brought me outside, with the rest of the family following suit more slowly. It wasn't often the entire family did something together. They must have thought this was an important occasion for everyone to be involved in or something.

Overnight the snow piled up so much it almost went over my boots as I stepped into it. This was much more snow than there usually was, so much so that school was even cancelled today! I would much rather be in the snow than in kindergarten. Snow was much more fun, even with the horde of vampires treading in it with me.

I reached down with my gloved hands to feel the snow. It was powdery and untouched. Perfect for eating, but I doubted my family would let me eat snow. I decided to eat it anyway, and ignored the protests from Mom and the laughs from some of the others.

I wasn't paying much attention to my family as I walked around, breathing in the frigid air and looking at the snow-coated-everything. I didn't pay attention to much else until I heard laughter and looked up to see Dad covered in snow. He was preparing a large snowball while eyeing Uncle Jasper. I headed back over to them, wanting how this was going to go.

The snowball Dad made was more basketball sized than the typical snowball was, but of course the size couldn't hurt Uncle Jasper. Even though dad threw it much faster than he should have been able to, it didn't hurt. What it did do, on the other hand, was start a snowball fight, with even Mom taking part.

I, for the first time, wanted to join in on something they were doing, just to have fun. I knew I shouldn't, but what harm could a snowball fight have? Unless they threw the snow too hard at me, it would be fine.

With my gloves on, I struggled to make a snowball. It kept falling apart and I couldn't get a good grip on it. I took the gloves off and stuck them in my pockets and then it was much easier to handle.

The first snowball I made wasn't too pretty, but it was functional, and when I threw it at the nearest person – which happened to be Mom – it exploded on impact just like it was supposed to.

Mom turned when she got hit and was surprised to see it was me. If I were being smart, I wouldn't have joined in the game, but I didn't want to be smart right then.

She smiled, and I caught myself smiling too.

The logical part of my brain was yelling at me to stick to my rules, so I would be safe, but what was one day of breaking them? This was fun. I wanted to have a snowball fight, and so I did.