Alaric had informed the Salvatore brothers about Elena being linked to him, they had already left to rescue Elena but the minute they entered, they were late, they could hear no heartbeat from Elena, they knew she was dead, Tyler and Damon hold Klaus while Stefan is the one who makes contact with his heart and Bonnie casts the spell and desiccates him, he takes one last look at Elena before falling to the ground. They keep him in a coffin and hide him in a truck, they chose to bury Elena first and after that they would decide what to do with the hybrid.
They place Elena in a coffin, bury her coffin in the ground, but it is only when her grave has been abandoned does she wake up with a gasp. Elena finds herself in a confined space, locked from every corner, it takes her sometime to figure out that she is in a coffin. She knocks on the coffin, "Hello, is someone there, help me, I am alive, help me." She knocks, but it's night time, the cemetery has been abandoned, there is no one around, her voice is locked within the coffin and most of all, mud covers her coffin making all the sounds that she makes, inaudible to the distant ears.
Elijah was already back on his way to Mystic Falls when he was informed of Elena's link to Alaric, but when he came and learnt that Niklaus had in fact killed Elena, he was furious, she could have transitioned, he thought, he started calling his brother but the phone went unanswered. He tracked his brother's cell and found his location to be in a warehouse. When he reaches there, there were numerous rooms, he rings his brother's cell again and then follows the sound which leads him to room no. 1020.
Elijah opens the coffin and looks at the rotting body of his nasty sibling, he places a blood bag in his brother's mouth, the human blood brings him back to his normal form. Klaus gets up and out of the coffin, "So, Elijah, tell me, did Elena complete the transition yet, or she chose not to."
As much as Elijah was ready to attack Niklaus once he was healed, the words that came out of Klaus' mouth baffled him, "Niklaus, what do you mean she transitioned?"
Elena was knocking on the base of the coffin but when no one hears her, she starts punching on the coffin, she has seen Kill Bill, she thinks maybe, just maybe, she would have enough strength to break boards, she has been training all year to kill vampires, at, the coffin won't be that hard to break. The problem was there was no room for her to pull her arm further behind, which prevented her from using her maximum strength, still, she tried punching her way out.
She kept punching until her knuckles started to bleed, but that was not it, it wasn't just the minimum space to use her strength, there was no air in the coffin, it was hard for her to breathe, she was in transition and the sound alone of her heartbeat was giving her headaches, punching her way out was only adding to her suffering, the sound, the lack of oxygen, the annoying headache.
Klaus grins and tells his brother, "Ah, let's just say I gave Elena some of my blood, this way my family lives and so does she"
Thinking about others has never been a trait of Klaus, so Elijah questions further, "Niklaus, why do I feel you didn't do it so that she could live, but you had some other diabolical reasons, elaborate further."
"Well, you see, no diabolical reason, just curiosity. I compelled Elena to tell me who would she have picked and her answer baffled me that she loves Stefan but would chose Damon and then I compelled her to tell me more and I learnt a few rather disturbing things about her relationship with the elder Salvatore. We were in the middle of our conversation when she reached the brisk of death, I knew that her end was important so that my family could live so I fed her my blood, not enough for her to heal, but enough for her to wake up in transition."
Klaus reveals everything to Elijah that he has learned of by compelling Elena and then he looks at the confused and worried expression on Elijah' face, "What, why are you looking at me like that?" Klaus questions his brother.
"Niklaus, they buried Elena, and if what you're telling me is true, then Elena is suffocating to death a few feet underground."
Without wasting anytime the brothers get into a car and drive towards Mystic Falls. Elena had managed to make a hole through the coffin but it only added to her misery as mud started filling into it. Elena didn't give up and tried to make the hole bigger but the mud was falling on her with so much force and speed that for some part she assumed that she would die. Soon mud covers everything up to her neck, only her face is left uncovered in mud. She hits the coffin again and again but this time she only makes it worse as there is no room for air inside for her.
She starts to suffocate, fighting for air, but nothing comes, she brings her hands to remove the mud from near her nose so she could breathe. She was going to die for sure she thinks because if she uses her hands to break the coffin further, she will suffocate to death and if she keeps covering her nose to make room for air to enter her nose, then too she will die the minute the air underground is exhausted. She is going to die anyway, she made peace with that thought and with that thought she shut her eyes close, ready for death to swallow her again.
When Klaus and Elijah reach town, their car runs out of fuel, they speed towards the cemetery and reach the headstone of Elena Gilbert. Klaus compels gets a gravedigger and compels him to dig Elena' grave.
"Niklaus, it's night time, a coffin only holds air enough for a human to last for three and a half hours, it's already been two hours, I think we might do it more quickly."
Elijah's calculation was right, but he had no idea that Elena had broken her coffin from the inside and there was hardly any air left to survive.
"Well, one and a half hour brother, I think Elena would survive that long." Klaus had no idea Elena had already lost her consciousness. Klaus compels the grave digger, "Do it fast mate."
He does, and in a few minutes when his shovel strikes something hard, both vampires take out the broken coffin, there was a hole in the centre, but when they open it, it is mostly covered in mud and just little blood on the part where it broke. They take her out of the coffin, Klaus rests her head on his shoulder, her eyes are close, she is hardly breathing, she is on the brink of death yet again but Klaus makes a decision for her.
Klaus grabs the grave digger and compels him, "Don't scream, don't run." He bites into the grave diggers wrist and places his bloody wrist on Elena's mouth. A drop of blood reaches inside Elena's mouth and her fangs show up, she bites into the wrist placed on her mouth wildly, her veins showing out. She pulls her fangs out and grabs the grave digger by his neck, pulls him towards her and bites hard into his neck and swallows his blood.
Klaus smiles looking at her feed from and innocent, he strokes her hair, "Yes, yes, sweetheart, drink, drink, so you can become what you truly are."
Klaus' voice brings her back to reality, she realizes what she has been doing, she immediately pulls out her fangs, bites into his wrist and heals him, then compels him, "Go away, don't return, go, run."
She stands up and stares at Klaus, "What did you do?"