Echo

Echo is a city built on a series of small islands, connected not by bridges, but by shouting. Each island is a station that receives news from the mainland, repeats it, and passes it on to the next island. The inhabitants do not create new stories; they amplify the ones they hear. "Did you hear?" says the man on the eastern rock. "Did you hear?" repeats the woman on the western skerry.

The architecture is minimal, designed to reflect sound rather than absorb it. The walls are smooth, white concave dishes that catch the wind and turn it into a whisper. In Echo, a thought is not considered real until it has been repeated three times. The citizens define themselves by what they choose to retransmit. To be silent is to cease to exist.

This constant relay creates a strange dissonance. By the time a story reaches the furthest island, it has been stripped of its nuance, reduced to a single, vibrating signal. The city lives in the reverb of the world, a chorus of voices repeating a song they did not write, happy to be the medium if not the message.