One day in 1997, aboard the _Endless Night _on the Amazon River, Ballard and Sandrine have just finished making love and intend to get ready for lunch. Ballard is a great deal older than Sandrine and first took interest in her when he noticed her headstrong, defiant nature during a business meeting with her father. Strangely, when Ballard looks out the window, he notices a younger version of himself leaning against the rail on the lower deck. The couple cleans up from the large metal worktable where they had coitus, which serves a more sinister purpose, then rushes to the dining room earlier than scheduled, hoping to catch a glimpse of the yacht’s mysterious staff. They suspect the staff is comprised of Amazon tribesmen, but have never seen them on the boat. At Sandrine’s mention of tribes, Ballard brings up the Piraha tribe, known for their language consisting of birdlike calls. Despite their punctuality, they miss the staff and start eating a meal of bizarrely unrecognizable, yet delicious, meat and vegetables. Confused, Sandrine asks Ballard if this feels familiar to him, thinking they’d had the same meal in the past, but that it tasted much better.

One day in 1982, aboard the Sweet Delight on the Amazon River, Ballard and Sandrine have just finished making love and intend to get ready for lunch. Ballard grew up in Hong Kong and now works there at a satellite office of a law firm. He specializes in cleaning up the collateral damage left behind by the firm’s clients. Sandrine lets her gaze settle on the scars of his body, then tells him to hurry so they may catch their seemingly invisible servants setting their table. On their way to the ship’s dining room, Sandrine hears a bird call and freezes. Ballard tells her the sound is actually from the native staff aboard the ship. They enter the dining room early, but still fail to see the servants. Unable to believe a person made the bird call, Sandrine inspects the room for a bird and Ballard admires her, thinking of how he had first seen her while saving her father from a jail sentence and doomed reputation. They lift the plate covers over their meals, finding unrecognizable vegetables and meat. They taste wonderful, but Sandrine asks Ballard if they’ve had this food before. Ballard says they haven’t, but they agree they once read some of the books on the surrounding shelves. When Sandrine says she remembers throwing a book overboard, Ballard takes the remainders of their plates and tosses them into the Amazon. They watch the ravenous fish in the water consume the food, and Ballard thinks they tossed books overboard to watch the same feeding frenzy.

One day in 1976, aboard the Sweet Delight on the Amazon River, Ballard and Sandrine have just finished tossing two books overboard to watch the fish below devour them. Sandrine expresses disdain for the natives watching them from the river’s banks, but Ballard respects them. Even in the solitude of the dining room, Ballard has the strange feeling they are being watched. He and Sandrine begin discussing the tribesmen again, and Sandrine recalls what her anthropology professor taught her about the Piraha tribe; that they worship an ancient tribe called The Old Ones, who called themselves We. Bored, the couple explores the galley, descending lower and lower until they find a corridor leading to the kitchens. Ballard enters the ominous corridor first, and although Sandrine objects at his exertion when she notices he has started bleeding through his suit jacket, he follows a scratching noise that leads to a pair of cages. Ballard first sees a giant bug missing a mandible in one cage, then a native boy locked in another. He has been mutilated, parts of his flesh removed and one of his arms reduced to a stump, and manages to utter out a single birdlike call. Ballard ushers Sandrine out of the corridor before she can see, then collapses and lies to her, telling her it was a toucan. Sandrine marvels at how the amazing meal they’d had was toucan, and the two return to their suite so Sandrine can stitch Ballard’s wound up.

One day in 1982, aboard the Sweet Delight on the Amazon River, Ballard is reminiscing meeting Sandrine. When Ballard first meets her, her father afraid is her unruliness might increase while he is gone on a business trip, so Ballard volunteers for her to stay with him. Alone with Sandrine, who is fifteen, he tells her that she should not cut herself anymore, and that he will do it for her. Despite their attraction for one another, he tells her they cannot have sex until she is eighteen and that cutting each other will be their way of learning each other’s bodies instead. Ballard first heard of the Sweet Delight from a couple Chinese bankers in Hong Kong. Now, in their present moment, Sandrine tells Ballard she wants to explore Manaus for a bit. After writing a note to the staff to dock, the yacht immediately stops at the city. Sandrine disembarks, but while wandering through the streets, she realizes a group of men is following her. They chase her into a slum, at which point she notices an old woman beckoning her to enter a shack. The old woman seems to shelter her at first, opening a door to a dark passageway that Sandrine understands as additional safety as the sound of the men grows closer. She almost falls down it, unaware that the door opens onto stairs, before the old woman locks the door behind her.

On the Sweet Delight, Ballard takes note of a set of red Chinese cabinets. Thinking the staff of the yacht want him to open them, he unlocks the doors and beholds the objects inside: photographs. He takes one out, which has an overwhelmingly sexual and dizzying effect on him. Sandrine, locked in the dark, bangs on the door to no avail and has no choice but to descend the stairs. In complete darkness, clueless of what dangers may lie beyond, she takes step after step and wonders why Ballard—a man whose job it is to clean up problems—isn’t here. Sandrine walks for so long that she briefly slips into unconsciousness, dreaming that she is locked in a cage with a giant bug next to her. In her dream, The Old Ones slice off pieces of Sandrine and feed them to the insect, causing the insect’s flesh to have a delicious flavor. She shakes herself from her stupor and continues down the steps, slowly coming into the light. She emerges from the tunnel and onto the docks again, where a gust of wind blows a sheet of paper onto her. The men who were following are already waiting for her, and Sandrine realizes they were simply chasing her back to the yacht. She looks down at the paper at their request, finding a picture of a mutilated man that oddly gives her a sexual feeling. She walks down the dock.

In 1997, The Old Ones emerge from the cracks and crevices of the yacht. They have worshipped the acts of cutting that Sandrine and Ballard have inflicted upon each other for years. Each time they cut, The Old Ones move the taken flesh down to the galley to feed the insect. Finally, when Sandrine and Ballard are nothing but trunks and featureless faces, The Old Ones throw their bodies into the Amazon, feeding the starving creatures below the surface. Then, The Old Ones sing.