BY  JEFF ROBERTS/STAFF WRITER*\

The darkness was their only cover as they fled into the Balkan night. They huddled together — a mother, father and young daughter — in a strange car with no seats except for the driver. Their hastily packed suitcases served as cushions. And fake documents served as hope — the hope that they could be smuggled out of Kosovo. Little Egzona Morina tried to make sense of it all as she hid beneath the hood of her sweat shirt — the only shield her parents could provide. Her family suddenly had been forced from its home. Everyone was crying. And panic hung heavily around them.

Then only 4, she did not know that the Serbians already had taken her parents’ jobs and personal documents, trying to erase their identity, their heritage and their education.

The only thing left to take was their lives.

“They basically wanted to just either kill everybody or you work for them,” Egzona said. “Everything was being taken over by Serbians.”

Those hazy images still remain with her — memories captured through the eyes of a frightened girl and now recalled by the 21-year-old FDU tennis player she grew up to become.

The memories of a woman who dreams that one day she will help heal her country.

And tennis has made that dream possible, bringing Egzona to FDU and America to study psychology.

The Morinas were part of the forced exodus of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo in the Serbian campaign of ethnic cleansing in the 1990s that killed at least 11,000 and forced 700,000 from their homes.

Egzona escaped the war, but has witnessed the scars her country and its people still carry.

She envisions opening a free mental health clinic in the capital city of Pristina — her home — to help those still suffering from invisible wounds.

And a plot of land sits waiting for her to build that clinic. For her 20th birthday, her parents, Xheladin Morina and Xhufe Bacaj-Morina, bought her property for its future site.

“People there need one,” Egzona said. “Somebody should start that. Might as well be me.”

But first she must finish her education, which she expects to end with a doctorate.

And first, Egzona will serve as the Knights’ captain, their No. 2 or 3 singles player, and part of their No. 2 doubles team when her season resumes in February.

The 2011-12 All-NEC No. 5 singles player was named NEC Player of the Month for September after winning Flight B at the Army Invitational.

“She spent all summer on the court, playing and teaching,” FDU coach Jonathan Buchman said. “Other coaches have come up to me and mentioned how much better she’s playing and how she’s stepped up.”

Egzona survived an odyssey just to arrive in Hackensack.

Her family left almost everything behind in its harried escape. Their home. Loved ones. Their valuables.(Kortezi: NorthJersey.com- THURSDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2012)