[ WP ] Six to ten billion light years away , there is a void in space one billion light years across devoid of all matter or dark matter .

I had nothing, yet I had everything. 
 
 I had all that man dreams of: wealth, power, droves of adoring followers willing to satisfy my every need. Small, stupid, insignificant things. The aspirations of a small mind. None of them mattered — I did not have *her*. 
 
 My rise to power was inevitable. I was more intelligent, more studious, simply better than any other citizen of the Empire. That fact was recognized from an early age, and the Emperor saw to it that I was provided a perfectly conducive environment in which to foster my innate abilities. By sixteen, I had perfected my antimatter tunnel theorem, allowing for the transport of matter between this and other dimensions. By eighteen, I had completed the prototype device. By twenty, the Empire was mine. Who could hope to match the power of someone who could recruit thousands of advanced troops from any of an infinite amount of dimensions where I was already the supreme leader? Who could match the wealth of one who needs no money, no resources to create, build, *conquer*? 
 
 Yet, she could have been my downfall. The woman with the honeyed-brown curly locks, the amber eyes, the plain face that screams *settle down, have children, leave the Empire, I ’ ll care for you, no more crying in your empty bed at night*…Yes, *her*. She would not have me; she would not allow herself to be my undoing. 
 
 I scoured the multiverse, finding dimensions where she was mine, brought her back to this one. Somehow those paradoxical copies, those doppelgängers, they were all just empty shells to my emotions; like a man trying to converse with an insect, my mind could not connect and experience the same yearning, aching love as I had for her in this dimension. It wasn ’ t the same. It wasn ’ t *her*. I had them disposed of. 
 
 Now, I stand here in the belly of my ship, floating in the void of space, at the exact centre of the Empire. The device is primed. I have found a dimension of pure *nothingness*, where all things are interwoven so finely that there is no determination of what is or what is not, where all things are not, and no things are. There, she and I can at last be together. 
 
 I reach out and adjust some controls on the holographic screen before me. Increasing power. Phase variance to minus ten. I know not where she is, so I set the radius to the maximum: all explored space. Billions of light years. It matters not. What matters is that she will be mine. Finally, my finger hovers over the execute command, hovering in the anemic blue light of the holographic projectors. I imagine what it will be like - quick, suffocating, intense. 
 
 I tap the button. 
 
 The stars spin on their axis, then stop. 
 
 I am nothing, yet I am everything.
