The artifact lay half-buried in the earth, its metal smooth but weathered as if it had rested there for millennia. A subtle hum pulsed from its core, resonating with something deep in the bones of the explorers who had uncovered it. Dr. Elias Marner knelt beside it, brushing away the dirt with careful fingers. He had spent a lifetime deciphering the past, but this—this was something new.

"Readings are off the charts," muttered Layla Voss, their tech specialist, studying the scanner. "Composition is unknown. It's emitting energy, but I can't tell how. This thing predates anything we’ve ever cataloged."

No sooner had she spoken than the artifact reacted. A pulse of light expanded outward in a perfect sphere, enveloping them before any of the five explorers could react. There was no time to scream, no time to flee. Just a moment of weightlessness, as if they had been unmoored from time itself.

Then they were somewhere else.

The forest they found themselves in was impossibly vibrant. Colors were richer, air cleaner, the hum of unseen life pressing in from all directions. Towering trees reached skyward, their trunks twisting in organic spirals, leaves shimmering with an iridescence that defied description. The sky above was the same familiar blue, but something was... different.

Elias was the first to check the stars. As the sky darkened, he pulled out his field scanner, aligning constellations. His breath hitched.

"We're on Earth." The others turned to him in disbelief. "But not our Earth. The constellations are slightly off—precessed, as if viewed from an Earth that never endured the changes of our history."

Silence settled over them. The implications were staggering.

As they ventured forward, they encountered signs of civilization—but not as they knew it. Structures of living wood and stone curved into the landscape instead of disrupting it. Roads were absent, replaced by green corridors where the ground pulsed with bioluminescent pathways, responding to their steps. They glimpsed figures moving between the trees, human in form but strikingly at ease in their environment.

Their presence did not go unnoticed. The people here—tall, strong, and unhurried—approached without hesitation, without fear. They wore no garments in their daily lives, their bodies unmarked by shame or discomfort, their movements fluid and unburdened. Their eyes held neither hostility nor shock, only curiosity.

A woman stepped forward, her dark hair woven with silver-threaded vines. She spoke in a language that Elias did not recognize, yet he understood. The artifact. It had done more than transport them—it had linked them to this place.

"You carry the mark of the old world," she said. "You are not of this place."

Layla swallowed. "Where are we?"

"You stand in the Verdant Reflection. The world as it was meant to be."

Days passed. Their technology remained functional but finite—their batteries draining with no means of recharging. Yet the more they learned, the more irrelevant their tools became. This world had technology beyond their understanding. Cities that grew rather than were built, transport that moved without combustion, medicine that healed through symbiosis rather than intervention.

And no war. No exploitation. No systems of control. Only balance.

The Verdant people welcomed them, teaching them their ways without expectation or coercion. They shared their knowledge freely, showing the explorers how the land provided without need for excess. The explorers found themselves questioning everything they had known—why their world had chosen violence over peace, domination over coexistence.

Elias sat by a river one evening, speaking with one of the elders, a man with skin the color of tree bark and eyes reflecting the sky.

"You know of our world," Elias said. It was not a question.

The elder nodded. "We have seen glimpses. You are not the first to come through the mirror, though few remain."

"Why don’t you intervene?" Layla asked. "If you know what’s happening on our Earth, why let it continue?"

The elder smiled sadly. "Change must come from within. If we were to force it upon you, it would not be change—it would be conquest. That is not our way."

Elias hesitated, then asked, "Your people seem... free. Not just from war and destruction, but from something deeper. Why do you not wear garments? Why is there no shame here?"

The elder chuckled softly. "Shame? That is a sickness your world bred long ago. When we see our bodies, we see what we are—living, breathing beings, part of nature, not apart from it. To cover in shame is to hide from truth. Without that burden, we grow without fear, love without judgment, and live without constraint."

Layla frowned. "But didn’t you ever develop ideas of modesty, of privacy?"

"Privacy, yes," the elder admitted. "There are times for solitude, for quiet reflection. But modesty? That implies a flaw in something natural. We do not teach children to be ashamed of their form; thus, they never learn to judge others by it. With that, envy, oppression, and control become unnecessary."

Elias felt a weight in his chest. "So you're saying... our world’s shame is the root of our conflicts?"

The elder nodded. "It is one root among many. When people are taught to fear what they are, they seek power over others to quiet that fear. Your world clothes itself in laws and restrictions, believing them to be order. But true order, true peace, comes from acceptance—not denial."

As their time stretched on, a question loomed over them: what did they do now? Their batteries would die soon, leaving them without access to their world’s technology. But a larger question remained—did they want to return at all?

The artifact still pulsed, a gateway home waiting to be activated.

Elias stood before it, feeling the weight of the decision pressing against him. The others gathered, each wrestling with their own thoughts.

"We have to go back," Reynolds said. "We can't just disappear. Our families—our lives—"

"And do what?" Layla interjected. "Go back and pretend we never saw this? That we don’t know what we know now?"

Silence. They had seen a world unspoiled, a world thriving without the scars of industry and conquest. And they knew—deep down—that their own Earth would never accept what they had seen.

Elias placed a hand on the artifact, its hum vibrating through his skin. "We have to decide now. If we leave, we can never come back."

Layla looked toward the forest, where the people of this world moved in harmony with their surroundings. A better version of humanity. A mirror of what could have been.

One by one, they made their choice.

And the Verdant Mirror watched.