Arrival produces a stunned unreality. The mind oscillates between terror and a strange emotional distance, as if it cannot fully accept what the eyes report.
In that haze, people cling to thin threads: the hope of reprieve, the belief that this cannot last, the impulse to interpret each sign as evidence of survival.
The camp immediately teaches a new physics: power is arbitrary, rules are unstable, and a person can be turned into a number with shocking speed.
Shock is not only fear. It is the first confrontation with the possibility that your old identity may not protect you here.