THE GIRL FROM NOWHERE

Steve wasn't the kind of person to keep secrets, in fact, the boy never learned to keep his mouth shut for the sake of humanity. He did, however, learn to keep quiet about Demodogs and Demogorgans that fled Hawkins. He was silent about that.

He lived to tell stories about others and gossip about something new every day, he even managed to make up a lie about himself once that everyone somehow believed. He was just that kind of boy.

But that changed over time, ever since the year 1984. Steve kept quiet, dangerously quiet, he was, even more, quieter than he was about the Demogorgans.

He would avoid everyone he knew, he would stay in his household for what seemed like months, and he would ignore everyone who spoke to him. He just wasn't Steve anymore, he was nobody.

He started changing the way he acted around other adults and teens, especially the kids. He would get frightened if they showed up unexpectedly at his house, he would get jumpy when one of them asked about his home life or what he's been up to for the past year.

He was scared. Scared of the kids.

The kids have never seen him so scared nonetheless, scared of them. They have never seen him get so frightened when they came by to his house, when they asked him simple questions, or when they got overly excited to see him.

He wasn't the normal Steve, he wasn't himself.

It had come to one day when The Party got slightly suspicious of his acts, hoping the boy that they looked up to hadn't been flayed like what had happened to Will. They started making up theories that he could be either flayed, seeing shit, high, or possibly just being skittish.

That was it. That's what they came up with.

The kids started keeping an eye out for Steve, watching his every move and making sure to follow him places. Sure it sounded creepy but the kids were desperate to know what the hell was going on with Steve.

And, of course, the kids saw nothing peculiar about Steve, it was just the way he acted.

It had been over a month once Joyce had seen him come into her workplace, she simply explained to the kids that Steve looked tired, his skin was lightly bruised and scars were placed against his face, some on his lip, and others were just above his eyebrows.

She attempted to ask him about what happened but he left quickly without speaking to her or answering her. And the only thing he bought was a box of bandaids.

It shouldn't have worried so many people but everyone was worried about Steve, they wanted to help him if he was going through something. Nancy had tried that once but it ended in Steve thrashing out on her, yelling at her to back off and to leave him alone.

After that, she stopped helping.

But the only person who could actually help and figure out what was going on was Eleven, the shy, brunette girl that Mike picked up from the forests.