I dare you to kill your main character. Not in the way that they'll come back in the end, but in the way that they're gone, and there's nothing that will bring them back. No plot devices, no time travel, no nothing (even if any such thing exists in your universe).

They can't be bad either - not someone who's secretly working for the other side, or someone whose ideals don't match up with that of the world, or a person whose death is their redemption.

The glass shards in her chest twisted, and as they did pain tore through her body.

So this was what it was like to have a heart broken so thoroughly.

To have a heart that would never beat, never breathe, never feel again.

She scrambled to pick the shards off the floor where he had stamped on them.

They tore through her hands, and blood mixed with the reflected light.

So she walked away. They didn't want her to have a heart? Fine, she wouldn't have one.

Maybe they would beg as she broke theirs underneath her stilettos.

...

*This is intentionally supposed to be written in a discordant/uglier writing style than my usual work.

"I will set your house on fire."

"No you won't."

"Don't try me. You know I won't back down from a challenge."

"I'm not trying you. I'm just saying that you might think you will set my house on fire, but you're not going to in the end."

"Yes I am. I've always wanted to burn someone's house down."

"And sure, we can do that. Just at another time, and at someone's house who isn't my own."

"What about your parents' house?"

"What about your house?"

"No! I like that place. That's the reason I chose it."

"And my parents will kill you if you burn down their house."

"No they won't. You're their favourite child, and you like me."

"No I don't."

"Fine, but at least you'd defend me from them, right?"

"Of course not. I still want to be left in their will - and I'm not letting my brother get all the money from their mercenary business, or leaving him in charge of it. He'd just destroy the whole thing and probably run to the police. Narc."

"Okay, but still-"

"Also, where do you think I learnt my abilites from?"

"You were self-taught?"

"No."

"Anyway, can I set your house on fire?"

"If you really want someone else's house to burn down, you can choose numbr 51. They have a hot tub."

"What do you have against people with hot tubs?"

"Hot tubs. Or you could do number 57, they still refuse to accept that people are allowed to be gay."

"Nah, you're punishment enough for them."

"I'm not that bad."

"Hello Mr I-have-a-pride-flag-on-the-front-door-and-rainbows-are-everywhere."

"Rainbows are cool. They're fragments of light that-"

"Yeah, I don't care. Fire is cooler."

"You're wrong, but that still doesn't mean you can burn my house down."

"I'll buy you a new one?"

"You'll buy me a new house?"

"Yeah sure, they only cost a few hundred thousand pounds these days."

"This one cost 600,000, and I'm not having anything cheaper than that."

"It's still under a million, and that's basically nothing right?"

"To your parents, maybe."

"Thank you for bringing up that example. My parents let me burn down our house so many times when I was a kid."

"Did they ever tell you that insurance fraud is a crime?"

"I'm pretty sure that with giving a child materials and teaching them how to make a fire look like it was started by accident, insurance fraud was the least of their worries."

"Your parents were crazy - you're crazy. You are not burning down my house."

"It's a bit rich you calling people crazy, you're literally a serial killer."

"Yeah, so are you. And?"

She rolled her eyes. "Nevermind. It was just an idea."

"We'll burn down the abandoned factory instead, how about that?"

She grinned. "You're the best."

bathe me in midnight ink and drag me down to the depths

pressure crushing my cranial cavity twisting me inside out

oxygen screams within my lungs its hollow cries go unheard

by your shrunken corpse among the fishes coral and bone

ecosystems inside your ribcage a world you’ll never know

filling the void in your chest where your heart once was

and i’m tugging on the tether one two three four five

but there’s no one bringing me up so i lay here

forgotten amongst the waves and shells and rubble

warped wreckage metal scraps propellers and a single sunken shoe

bathe me in midnight ink and drag me down to the depths

crown me in a ring of anemone

and hereafter i will lie with nothing but

a curious cuttlefish to stir my settled bones

open your fiery gates, fools

allow my creeping corruption to caress you deep inside

and bear yourselves to the darkness that resides within

until your light seeps out between my clenched fingers

whispering like coals tossed about in the tide

open your fiery gates, fools

so i may sit upon my rightful throne

with naught but a wicked smile splitting my face and a

lopsided crown of broken bones perched upon my skull

at long last, fools, your ruler has come home

bloodstained fingertips trace words in the dust upon the glass of these broken castle walls that once loomed so high above our heads but now they’re nothing but rubble bits and bricks among the ashes where even the plants refuse to grow

the chains holding us rust and creak with every breath until there’s nothing left but dust trickling down around us caught in the fibers of time woven into our beings and pulsing with every throb of our shattered hearts

a single word high above the rest traced in the dust and seared into our minds

‘war’ it proclaims ‘war’ while we’re crying out for peace our voices caught in the darkness until they too fade away like the ghosts of those who came before us

we cannot shake the icy fingers of the past that tremble down our backs with crusty fingernails and clutch us in their grip waiting for a moment of surrender to strike

but we cannot surrender we cannot give in we cannot stay silent we must fight against the chokehold we must fight against the lies we must fight against the wrongs

‘war’

our fingertips still bloodied we wipe this word from these fallen ruins and carve a new word a new mantra a new legacy

‘peace’