A lot of people noted the similarities between this story and Homunclus, although I notice them, there is a huge contrast between the main protagonists, and I love the wide range of emotions from the characters in both stories.

Dave strikes me as more passive than Ray. The big difference being, Ray had some legal leverage in knowing his family couldn't just flat out  murder or maim him without some consequence. Dave though, risked being murdered at any moment and no one would've known. And Carolyn had even less cards in her deck than Naomi.

Personally I liked Homunclus more because Ray had more attitude to him and made several attempts to fight back (figuratively speaking as he'd say) and even got the upper-hand for short durations. But, obviously Ray's situation as I noted gave him more leeway to act out.

Overall I also connected to Ray more since we got more insight into his life before living with the Daltons, his emotional attachment to his family at Spectrum, and felt his pain of him being legally forced to stay with the Daltonsm for life, as well as being GenetiTech's lab-rat.

The suspense though is what this story's strongest strength is in my eyes,  Carolyn was prone to snapping at any moment, her overall delusional frame of mind that she's being a kind owner, Eddie's descent into madness, the betrayal aspects, of not only Linda, and Eddie, but Dave for picking Randy to die.

I also loved the sense of unity the group developed later on, especially of Mr. Nichols ( my favorite character) who came off as the most unlikeable at first, to being the most sensible and self-less, willing to stay behind because he thought he'd slow every down.

I couldn't stop reading in the final escape attempt and feel sad when everyone ( save for Dave and Julie) started to die one by one. Masterful work yet again.