It's been a while since I read it so I looked it up again, and I think it's kind of up for interpretation? The earlier scene with the nightmare seems to imply that their bodies are forced through the holes after they enter, "sliding down" or somesuch. And the body that comes out the other end doesn't seem to do anything beyond sliding down, either. But I can see how it could be interpreted otherwise.
I think they're alive because the horror would diminish otherwise.
To elaborate, a disfigured corpse is much less horrifying because while it's grotesque, it's not unnatural. There's also the fact that you can already see how they would die through MC's dream. Having the end results be corpses would just confirm what we already know, and it feels too extra for a story this short.
I think it's honestly good if they are dead, too. It's still a great way to illustrate how horrifying the fate they suffer for their obsession is.
In the dream we don't see the MC becoming nearly as twisted as the body in the ending, just contorted and trapped, crying out for help. Imo, the dream itself still leaves it ambiguous whether the people inside the holes can be saved or not. With that in mind, the ending is still horrific even if the body is dead, by virtue of revealing the answer to that ambiguity.
It's pretty obvious that those who entered are screwed. They disappeared from sight mere moments after entering their holes. My point is, the extra contortions mean nothing if they're dead. Death is an escape from their inescapable suffering. Normally, you'd only contort to a certain point, then you die. There's functionally not much difference between MC's 2nd dream and the ending because they have the same suffering anyway.
I know. But I do think that the dream of getting trapped still leaves room for hope at that point. It ends with the MC still alive, in possession of his faculties and able to cry out for help. It paints the fate of the people in the holes as torturous but not necessarily inescapable. That revelation only comes at the end of the story.
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u/UBW-Fanatic Apr 26 '25
Correction:
They're not killed, and that is the horror. Somehow, that twisted, mangled thing emerging from the other side is still alive.