While the search for Will rages on, a young girl sneaks into the back of Benny's Diner (with a shaved head and wearing nothing but a hospital gown). Benny finds her stealing a cheeseburger in the kitchen and tries to calm her down before calling social workers to come pick her up. Unfortunately, a nefarious team of men — presumably from the same lab the monster escaped from — arrive at Benny's instead. They immediately murder the diner owner, and in the commotion Eleven is able to escape.
Will's friends, who have taken it upon themselves to find him since the cops won't, run into her shivering in the woods. She can't speak, but they take her under their wing anyway. She soon reveals to them that she has strange powers (like being able to move things with her mind and making a school bully pee his pants) and that she knows where Will is — attempting to hide from a monster, whom the boys dub the "Demogorgon." She was experimented on at the same lab and is now on the run from "bad people." Her powers do have a limit, however, and if she exerts herself too much, she gets a bloody nose and starts to faint.
Joyce and Chief Hopper discover later in the series that Eleven's mom participated in tests for Dr. Brenner while she was pregnant, which is likely to blame for her abilities. Although doctors told the woman that she had a miscarriage, Brenner actually took the baby away. Eleven's mom was left incapacitated from whatever tests were performed on her.
