Elisabeth Friedman Wickson is a character in ObsCure. She work as the nurse in the Leafmore High, while secretly she was the wife of Leonard Friedman and the mother of Jedidiah.
Story
Background
She was born in the late 1800's, at the age of 20 she married the researcher and botanist Leonard Friedman in June 24th of 1885, native of her hometown: Rockroad, Iowa. It seems that the woman was particularly fond of her husband and, at the same time, it demonstrates very obedient (as were expected the women by the time), because she never opposed the obsession of him for a plant found in Africa together with twin brother Herbert in 1895: the Mortifilia. Elisabeth even took part in several experiments of the twins with the plant, which, according to them, could give eternal life. However, the scientific community did not share the views of Friedman and flatly vetoed any financial request expressed from them.
So, Elisabeth seconded the obsession of Leonard when they, together with Herbert, founded the Leafmore High and in the City of Fallcreek (where the family settled), just to test the Mortifilia's spores in a human subject kidnapping students to use as guinea pigs in a complex of underground laboratories located below the school. She took the role of the school nurse.
Subsequently, however, Leonard decided to test a new serum of the Mortifilia directly on himself, hoping that it would be the perfect serum that it would grant the inmortality, despite only a few experiments had been done until then. This was probably the first time that Elisabeth was not silent in front of her husband's action; So she wrote to Herbert a letter which beg him to dissuade him from that intent, though trying to avoid being discovered by Leonard, perhaps because they feared his wrath. Herbert couldn't, or didn't, stop him, so her husband injected directly into the veins the last serum they have synthesized, futhermore he also decide to test how will the Mortifilia affect the Conception and heritage, thus, he got her pregnant, which would result in their son, Jedidiah Friedman, although he was born deformed and handicapped. It is unclear whether Elisabeth was or wasn't agree with this decision, but she didn't opposed him and decided to grow Jedediah. She took care of his son, telling him stories for him to sleep and trying to distract him from the terrifying nightmares that he had every night. Leonard began to show the effects of the serum, thus beginning a slow and grotesque mutation that turned it into a sort of hybrid human-plant, forcing Elisabeth and Herbert to lock him in the basement of the school to prevent from being exposed to more light (Which would kill him).
The great affection that she felt for him then came to the surface: she, desperated by the terrifying metamorphosis of Leonard, began to help his brother-in-law's gruesome experiments on young students of the Leafmore High School to be able to synthesize a serum that would invert the metamorphosis (While the kidnaps of the boys were cover-up by the influence of the new ally of Friedman: the ΔΘГ.
However, despite their research, both Elisabeth and Herbert knew that it would take too much time to study the full potencial of the Mortifilia.
So in 1921, they injected themselves with a synthesized serum of the Mortifilia in order to obtain eternal life knowing that, from that moment, a excessive amount of exposure to sunlight would cause them to mutate. Elisabeth devoted nearly a century to the research on the Mortifilia to get back her husband, reaching a totally devotion to even neglect her child, left to grow alone in his home.
For years Miss Wickson helped his brother-in-law in his experiments, although, over the time, their dedication started to fall, believing that Leonard was now a monster.
Leafmore Incident
During the events of ObsCure, Elisabeth was notified by Herbert about his suspicions that the teacher Denny Walden has found out their experiments. During the day, she called Friedman's Office at 17:30 and at 18:50, because she was very concerned about the strange monsters on the loose appearing in the school buildings, but she didn't get any replay.
Subsequently, Miss Wickson found herself trapped in the infirmary and began to asks for help through the cameras. The group of survivors students saw her after they entered in the Janitor's room and entered the dining hall, trying to reach her. The woman, aware of the creatures' weakness by obvious reason, didn't trust to open the infirmary's door until the creatures on the loose were exterminated by lights of the building. Succeeded, the boys get back to her and found her particularly worried, uncontrollably uttering randomly things, a giant creature, a large door and a certain "Leonard". Convinced that the woman is out of her mind, the students leave the infirmary. After a certain amount of time, she was surprised by Mr. Walden who begin to show symptoms of the infection, he came to ask about something to fight it, but didn't get any response by the nurse. So he desperately beat her, trying to get information about the cure, she did told him about the cure, but he had hurt her critically.
Later, after being infected by the Principal Herbert Friedman, the group returned to the building in hope that the nurse (although Friedman's accomplice) could help them. But it was too late, Elisabeth was covered with wounds in a pool of blood, she understood that the boys were infected and, in a final act of redemption before dying, reveal them about the antidote to the Mortifilia in the basement which can be accessed through the gardens.
After that moment, Elisabeth Wickson died, the whole group felt sad about, but Stan was the most affected as at that moment he felt defeated. He had thought the whole event as an adventure, but it was at that moment that he finally realized what was really the danger, the horror and the mortality of the infection that flooded their veins.
Personality
Elisabeth's nature never proven to be safe enough to allow her to take decisions alone, preferring to always accommodate the ideas of Herbert, thus, when the situation begins to precipitate, the woman panicks, pleading for help and loses the reason. So when her husband begins to experiments, she begin to feel discomforted and regretful. Nevertheless, after her husband's mutation, she considers the idea of saving him as a priority. Her true character is revealed only when she exhales her last breath in a final act of redemption, Elisabeth begs the surviving students of Leafmore to forgive her, her husband, and his brother and tells them about the antitode which would save them from the infection of the Mortifilia.
Trivia
- There's a high possibility that Mr. Walden was the one who harmed and killed her. No monsters could have gotten to her due to the lights having been turned on prior to her death. This could have been a attempt to get information about the cure.
- Miss Wickson's death is not absolutely necessary to complete the game. Once you exit the underground, in fact, you can go straight to the dormitory using wire cutters completely ignoring the nurse's fate. The Steam version solved this.
- In the German version of the game Wickson's surname was changed to Wilson, the reason due to the similarity to the word "Wichsen", a german expression that means masturbation.
