When will it end?

The greater western Prince William community lost Dimitris "Luckie" Zayas on Oct. 6, a 17-year-old senior at Centreville High School that previously attended and played lacrosse for Brentsville District High School in Nokesville.

One week prior on Sept. 30, 18-year-old Travis Love, a former Brentsville District student that transferred to the New Directions Alternative Education Center in Manassas, died. Love, an outdoors enthusiast, "was very active with the senior citizens and elderly in his neighborhood and community," according to his obituary.

Prince William County police investigated both deaths as suicides, the second and third connected with Brentsville District High School in less than two weeks and the fourth in just over a month.

Brentsville senior Austin Trenum took his own life on Sept. 26 and died in the early morning hours Sept. 27. That followed a concussion he sustained during a Sept. 24 football game, leading his family to issue a statement linking the two instances together as Trenum had not shown any symptoms of depression prior to the concussion.

Trenum played lacrosse with Zayas, who attended Trenum's burial one week before he himself died.

While their lives were cut short due to reasons of their own volition, to many, they're more than numbers, more than statistics.

They're people.

"Thanks for visiting my dream," one of Zayas's friends wrote on a Facebook memorial to him.

Another person wrote about Love, "Travis, always, was such a fun child to be around. His big smile and the twinkle in his eyes made you laugh."

That the deceased were in their late teens brings a heightened sense to the tragedies, though they're certainly not alone. On Aug. 28, 23-year-old Justin Goff, who graduated from Brentsville in 2005, publicly did the same on a hillside in Gainesville.

His death followed two drunken driving crashes that killed Battlefield High School graduates Taylor Waldron and Stephen Dixon and rising sophomore Derek Meffert this past summer. Meffert and Dixon rode together.

Like the Battlefield community rallied to bring awareness to the perils of drunken driving, the Brentsville school administration issued a notice to parents last week informing them of upcoming lectures all students would receive unless they opted their children out of the presentations.

The note read in part that in past years, the Student Services Team at Brentsville "has presented the Signs of Suicide Program" to "all students in the freshman class.

"However, in light of recent events in our community, the BDHS Student Services Team along with the PWCS Critical Incident Team will be presenting the S.O.S. Program to all grade levels," it stated.

Program administrators were set to begin instruction this past Monday with seniors during their Government classes and continued Tuesday.