After Dark

She goes on with her story. “I don’t remember how long the darkness lasted. Now it seems awfully long to me, but in fact it may not have been that long. Exactly how many minutes it lasted−five minutes, twenty minutes−really doesn’t matter. The important thing is that during that whole time in the dark, Eri was holding me. And it wasn’t just some ordinary hug. She squeezed one. She never loosened her grip for a second, It felt as though if we separated the slightest bit, we would never see each other in this world again.”
from Haruki Murakami “After Dark”