ELEVEN

She knows that if she is good Papa will love her. If she is bad, and she is often bad, she goes into the small dark room where there is no Papa, no comfort, and no light. Eleven hates that room. Hates the loneliness. Hates the darkness. So Eleven tries to be good. She tries to do everything that Papa asks her to do, even if it scares her, even if it seems impossible. Because she knows, above anything else, that she wants Papa to love her. 

And he does. But only when she does well. Only when she earns that affection. So Eleven does her best to earn it. She goes into the sensory deprivation tank, even if it scares her, and she chases after the monster and opens the gate. Because he tells her to and Papa is always right. It isn't until he brings her a cat that she questions. He brings her a cat in a cage and her heart swells with the hope that Papa had brought her an animal to love, to cuddle, to pet. Then he tells her to kill it.

She won't. She can't. All Eleven wants to do is reach through the bars of that cage and stroke that fluffy fur but she's being dragged away by the mean men, the orderlies, and she can't- she won't go into the dark room again. So Eleven kills them. It's easy. So easy, and she feels no remorse as she escapes. Unlike the cat, they could have never been her friend. Unlike Papa they never loved her.

The outside is a terrifying place. Eleven doesn't know how to handle it, and she skirts along the edges of civilization like the wild thing she isn't. Like a house cat suddenly dumped outside the kid doesn't know how to find food or shelter. When it starts to rain there's no reason not to cry. A nice man finds her, feeds her, and is killed by Papa. Eleven manages to escape again and she meets a trio of boys who will change her entire world.

Eleven has never had friends before. At first, she's as unsure of them as they are of her. Only Mike believes in her, sees her as something more than a tool, and it's an oddity that makes Eleven want to cry because she had no idea what she was missing. Soon she can't imagine what life was like without Mike, Dustin, and Lucas. But what she can't tell them is that she's the reason Will is missing. That she's the real monster for unleashing it all on Hawkins.

She has no regrets. Eleven would unleash a million monsters on Hawkins if it meant that she could stay with her friends. She would keep them safe. Except she can't. Bullies are easy to handle. Government agents she can kill. The monster with the flower face, the one that stole Will, is another matter entirely. Eleven kills it. To save Mike and his friends. She will sacrifice anything to save the only people who really love her. Even her own life.

But she doesn't die. Eleven wakes up in the Upsidedown. Not dead. She escapes back into the real world, away from the school, and to Mike. Only she can't stay with Mike. The bad men have found him. They're swarming the homes of all her friends like angry hornets and if she's found anywhere near them then she knows they will die. Her heart hurts, but Eleven stays away. She lives in the woods, lonely and cold, until Hopper finds her.

Eleven's new world revolves around Hopper. 

She's a secret, he says, and she has to be patient until it's safe to go see Mike again. Every night his voice crackles on her radio. Every night she enters her sensory deprivation world to find him. Every night it's still not safe. So sayeth the Hopper. It's so not fair.

A serious case of cabin fever inflicts Eleven, and Mike is fraternizing with redheads. She ends up on an epic quest to find Mama, and then Mama sends her to find her sister, and being with Eight again makes her realize that her friends are the only family she really needs. And they need her help.

She heads back to Hawkins and saves her friends from attack by something Dustin calls Demodogs. The group realize they need to close the gate that Eleven opened, and she goes with Hopp to do just that. It's hard work, but with the training from Kali, Eleven thinks she closes the gate. She collapses besides Hopper, exhausted, and he takes her home.