Hallowed Players

 Reese Benson

Reese Benson was born on August 1st, 1987, to Army officer Harry Benson and ER nurse Shirly Benson (née Kilpatrick). He’s got a younger sister, Kimberly, and a knack for putting sports before schoolwork. Football was his life from the moment he could walk, and he rode that dream through a high school career marked by popularity, parties, and big plays under Friday night lights.

But the summer of 2003 changed everything. When his father was killed in Afghanistan, Reese had to grow up fast. With his mom pulling double shifts at the hospital, Reese stepped into the role of caretaker for his emotionally fragile sister. He’s trying to hold it all together—his future, his family, and maybe even his fading dreams.

He’s taking it all in stride… at least on the surface.

Mina Murray

Mina Murray is brilliant—blindingly so. She tested out of multiple grades, landed in high school at 12, and could easily be in college already. But she’s not interested in college. Not yet. Not when Cypress Grove is the one place where the veil feels thin enough to pull back.

Her parents, Colin and Savannah Murray, are the kind of wealthy that never goes out of style—he’s in the world of offshore finance, and she curates overpriced art. In the '90s, they purchased and renovated Belle Rive Plantation into a cold monument of steel and marble, dressed up in historical preservation grants. It’s home, technically, but Mina mostly has the place to herself.

She was raised by Mama Cirice, a Haitian woman with old eyes and older wisdom. Cirice taught her the rhythms of herbs, dreams, and spirits—the language of protection, prophecy, and presence.

Cirice died when Mina was 11. But Mina still sees her… sometimes.

Rain Duveil

Rain Duveil was born in the bayous of Louisiana, like most of his kin. And like them, he carries the old blood—the kind that runs cold and clear, touched by water-faeries and murky secrets best left unspoken.

His people don’t mingle much with the city folk. They live between lily pads and legends, far from the asphalt and noise of the human world. But something’s changing in the swamps. The waters feel… wrong. And so Rain was chosen, raised for it, sent to walk where no one from his community has walked in generations.

Homeschooled and half-myth, Rain’s showing up at Cypress Grove High with mud on his boots and moonlight in his veins. He's here to find out what’s poisoning the water—and maybe what it means to belong to two worlds at once.

Greg Davis

Greg Davis is a 16-year-old sophomore from another school district. Life’s never played fair with him. His father died before he was born, and being the youngest of three meant he was always last in line—for attention, for opportunity, for just about everything.

So Greg stopped asking nicely.

He got what he wanted the hard way, even if it meant crossing a line. That’s how he ended up with a skateboard that once belonged to the late John Russo, a legend on four wheels. But the board wasn’t his—not really. When its rightful owner gave chase, Greg pushed too hard. One stray can, one bad fall… and his neck snapped on impact.

Dead on arrival.

But Greg didn’t stay dead.

Somewhere in the cold silence of the morgue, he opened his eyes. He slipped out of the hospital unseen and found the board dumped by the trash out back, waiting for him like it had never left.

Now, drawn to Cypress Grove by word of a tournament, Greg’s back on the board. Back from the dead. And this time, he’s determined to pull off the impossible.

Nishma al-Mazani

Born on October 31st to Muslim parents who immigrated from Afghanistan by way of France, Nishma al-Mazani is the third of five siblings—and the quiet one, always.

She keeps her head down, her nose in a book, and her heart somewhere in the margins of ancient texts. A devout student raised Sunni, she’s recently become captivated by the mystic traditions of Sufism—and, perhaps more controversially, the darker corners of the Christian occult. Her obsessions are as layered as her notebooks: she speaks French, Arabic, and English, and her backpack is always weighed down with journals written in looping Arabic script, most of them translations from Greek.

Spicy snacks, especially Takis, are her one indulgence. That, and bones. She has an uncanny fascination with animal skeletons—cataloging, sketching, and quietly revering them.

Some people whisper she’s strange. Others just don’t understand her. Which is exactly how Nishma prefers it. The language barrier helps. So do the bones.