While hunting in the Mesoamerican rainforest, Jaguar Paw, his father Flint Sky, and their fellow tribesmen encounter a procession of refugees fleeing warfare. The group's leader explains that their lands were ravaged and they seek a new beginning. He asks for permission to pass through the jungle. Flint Sky comments to his son that the visitors were sick with fear and urges him to never allow fear to infect him. Later that night, the tribe gather around an elder who shares a story that cryptically foreshadows the events of the film: an individual who is consumed by an emptiness that cannot be satisfied, despite having all the gifts of the world offered to him, will continue blindly taking until there is nothing left in the world for him to take and the world is no more.