Is Death Necessary?

We are neck deep in all the great slush you guys are sending in. (Keep 'em coming!)
You would not believe how many stories we get where a character dies at the end. Seriously, it's a lot. I guess it's not surprising for horror/macabre. And I know death is very dramatic. But for your story, is death necessary? It's difficult to stand out when we have so much death in our slush pile.

Consider: there are worse things than death. I'll leave that for the author's imagination.

If you are going to kill off your darlings, make an effort to make the reader care about the character(s). An effective writer's trick is the 'Save the Cat.' Show the character saving a kitten or puppy or baby and reader will care more about them. Making the character an underdog also works, for example, being bullied, or being diagnosed with cancer, or your_idea_here. Another trick is show the character is necessary/important. For example, the character is killed but his/her/their baby is sitting alone in the next room... Dark! Dramatic! The reader is hooked!

Good luck with your lethal, or nonlethal, story!