Years ago I read a book that I think was called “The Academy”. I remember the plot, mostly. I’m pretty sure it’s the right title. I had it on my kindle paperwhite, then I went to reread it one day and couldn’t find it! I looked for it but I couldn’t find it on kindle. Here’s everything I can remember on the book:

It was a story about a boy that was kidnapped from his family’s place and forced to compete for survival out of a class of people. They were taken to a valley or somewhere where they had to build their own caves to live. Many of these other kidnapped would be killed throughout their events and training until a few were left for the final test before advancing to the next year.

Some specific events a plot points I remember:

One of the first test of theirs is to remain completely quiet for a long period of time, possibly a few weeks. Anyone who made any noise with their mouth was killed immediately. When this was first announced a lot of people were killed by guns. Later on people were killed, including someone the main character was close with when their teacher scared the friend so the friend let out a small scream and was shot in the head.

They were forced to live in caves which they needed to construct themselves, and the protagonist thoroughly developed the tunnels inside of his so that it was extremely hard to get in. He had special rooms carved out in it.

The children all participated in games for prizes that would help them later, of course many of them died or were killed in some fashion. During one of these tests the protagonist chose a vaguely worded gift that turned out to be genetically modifying him for wings (I think) which he put to great use later on as well, it might have been something else but I do think that it was wings.

At the end of the study period the final test was to get to a cave on a mountain, but what the instructors didn’t tell the kids is that they had taken the bodies of the kids they killed and reanimated them to be twisted puppets. The killed kids had guns and sprayed bullets into the sort of shack that the remaining kids were in, killing many of them. The remaining ones all pulled the bodies on top of them and played dead, after that they all tried to get to the cave. I forget what happened after though.

If anyone knows where I can find this book I would appreciate the help!! I have been trying to find this book over the past like 5 years, I would really appreciate it!!!