500 Internal server error on shared web hosting Hostinger

So I've been trying to get my Laravel application running on Hostinger under a shared hosting plan (I wasn't aware VPS is actually better for Laravel) but I'm getting a 500 server error.

I have already configured my index.php and .htaccess files as well as made a database and put the credentials into the .env file so now I'm confused as to what I'm doing wrong. Also: the URL of the website redirects me to website.com/public which is pretty weird because there's no file or folder anymore called public as I've put all the files and folders of public into public_html and the rest of the files/folders in their own seperate folder on the level above.

.htacces:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    <IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
        Options -MultiViews -Indexes
    </IfModule>
    
    <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
     RewriteEngine On
     RewriteRule ^(.*)$ public/ [L]
    </IfModule>

    RewriteEngine On

    # Handle Authorization Header
    RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} .
    RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

    # Redirect Trailing Slashes If Not A Folder...
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.+)/$
    RewriteRule ^ %1 [L,R=301]

    # Send Requests To Front Controller...
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
</IfModule>

index.php:

<?php

use Illuminate\Contracts\Http\Kernel;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

define('LARAVEL_START', microtime(true));

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Check If The Application Is Under Maintenance
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| If the application is in maintenance / demo mode via the "down" command
| we will load this file so that any pre-rendered content can be shown
| instead of starting the framework, which could cause an exception.
|
*/

if (file_exists($maintenance = __DIR__.'/../aquatory/storage/framework/maintenance.php')) {
    require $maintenance;
}

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Register The Auto Loader
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Composer provides a convenient, automatically generated class loader for
| this application. We just need to utilize it! We'll simply require it
| into the script here so we don't need to manually load our classes.
|
*/

require __DIR__.'/../aquatory/vendor/autoload.php';

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Run The Application
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Once we have the application, we can handle the incoming request using
| the application's HTTP kernel. Then, we will send the response back
| to this client's browser, allowing them to enjoy our application.
|
*/

$app = require_once __DIR__.'/../aquatory/bootstrap/app.php';

$kernel = $app->make(Kernel::class);

$response = $kernel->handle(
    $request = Request::capture()
)->send();

$kernel->terminate($request, $response);

My guesses:

the website root is pointing at a file/folder that doesn't exist
something up with my .htacces because idk what all of it does
the symlink of public_html in my root folder of my domain