Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-5752201-20160916185046/@comment-29709755-20160920041429

Oh, alright. If you insist. The following is what I got when I read through the story in a natural conversational tone. I tried not to change it too much, and to preserve as much of the original as I could.

I’ve never told anyone this story, and I think I’ll never tell it (in case of a possible deanonymization) '''["I think I'll never tell it" would read more naturally as "I don't think I ever will". Deanonymization isn't really a word people use, especially in this context. The whole phrase in parens could be cut, or swapped out with, say, "in case I get found out"] '''. One night I was guarding an office.'''[This is just a bit awkward. Maybe mention you had a job as a night watchman and you were on shift alone in an office somewhere, "Once while I was working the night shift guarding an office building" or the like] I didn’t have much to do, just to prevent [you can replace "to prevent" with "to stop"] anyone from breaking inside [in, not inside](I am skinny as fuck, but if someone could break through that tough iron door, even a SWAT guy [SWAT team] wouldn’t stop them, so I was there just for the sake of formality [as a formality]'''), to let my bosses in and to check if the ceiling was leaking – sometimes a pipe on the second story would burst. Also, I had to clean the windows once a week. Basically, my work was easy and cushy '''["easy and cushy" is redundant, and the whole sentence is kinda odd. "Basically, I had nothing to do all night" or "Basically, my job was pretty skate" would feel better]'''. There were also computers with simple [lose the word "simple" and put in "old", or maybe just leave it blank] games like Heroes of Might and Magic III [I would just say there were old computer games, or mention that – and I didn’t need anything more. I spent every Saturday night in that office. Things were quiet, as only three people had keys – me, a director and some manager. One Saturday night I was playing the game [playing on the computer] when something rustled behind the door. Once. [Just once]

I walked up [got up] and looked into[through] the peephole –[replace the dash with a period or "but"] nobody was there. I thought it was someone just passing by and got back to the game, but [but then] something scratched at the door, and I heard an indistinct male voice. I thought it was the director, [so I] put the key in, turned it once and then looked into the peephole again. I said, “Is that you?”, but nobody answered. I turned back the key, and,[excise this comma] immediately,[this one too] I heard a voice from beyond the door. This time it sounded like a woman, but I still couldn’t understand a thing. It seemed like it was saying something, but not a single syllable made any sense. I swore at them and threatened to call the police (I was bluffing – we had no phones in the office, and the whole thing happened before the age of cellulars [cell phones, not cellulars]). A moment later, the female voice shut up, and I heard a quiet knock in the window. I opened the blind, and I was stunned. No, I wasn’t just fucking stunned. [I would replace the comma with a period and cut the next bit, "I was paralyzed with fear", and put it on the end of this sentence]

I was paralyzed with fear – my legs bent [buckled], and I sat on the floor. A man (I want to believe it was a man) was hanging on the bars. Everything about him was completely unnatural. It looked like someone who [something that] had seen humans only in the movies [had only seen people in movies before had] made a human suit and put it on. I couldn’t even approximately define [guess at] that thing’s gender. Once it saw me, it started to speak – first, with the same female voice, then it started to alternate with the male one and then it seemed like the sound was coming from different sources, interrupted by some scraping and rustling. Fuck, even its facial expression was absolutely inhuman – it was moving its facial muscles in all possible directions. The creature was pressing its hands and legs at the glass while somehow going up [climbing up at the same time]. Maybe it was squeezing the rods with its knees and climbing '''[cut out "and climbing". It's somewhat redundant. You might want to replace it with "and pushing itself up" if you want to make the action clear]''', I don’t know. Back then, I thought it was flying up [cut the word "up"]. I could see the thing very well, and it hung for a pretty long time, perhaps, [get rid of that comma] for a minute. All that time I couldn’t do anything – I just sat on my ass and stared at the creature.

About a minute later came a sudden deliverance [the phrase "came a sudden deliverance" could be cut out, or you could say something like "About a minute later it finally ended"] – the whole cacophony died down, the thing turned back abruptly (I swear its head turned at 100 degrees ["it's head turned all the way around" would be more effective, since heads can in fact turn 100 degrees in the normal run of things]) and froze for a few seconds [put in a comma here] staring at something. Then it quickly [suddenly] jumped down and got away '''[ran off. "Got away" would imply it was escaping] while speaking something with [while screaming something in]''' a new, high-pitched voice. Since I was sitting on the floor, I couldn’t see where it went. All I could do was close the blind [blinds] and crawl into the room [the office] where I couldn’t see the door or the windows. There I sat [I sat there] and cried like a baby – it had been eight years since I had wept for the last time [since the last time I'd cried]. Then it stopped, and I felt a bad shiver [The first part would definitely be"Then I stopped," and I'd say "and I shivered all over" or "and I felt a shudder run through me"]. I sat on the floor till six in the morning, when my coworker, Artyom, came to replace me. I was looking at him [I looked at him] through the peephole for about two minutes asking him either to step back or to say something '''[before I opened the door. This isn't strictly necessary, but it does sound tidier]'''.

Finally, I let him in, and although he slapped me on the back of my head, I only happily and hysterically laughed [I just laughed hysterically] (until I started to cry again). Anyway, when I came home, my parents had no idea what had happened to me – I was pale, I had circles under my eyes, and as [when] I weighed myself, I found out that I had lost seven kilograms [If you wanted to put it in terms an American would relate to, "I had lost fifteen pounds"] over [cut out the word "over", or put "over the course of the night"] that night. Since that time [since then] I often have trouble to fall asleep ["have a hard time falling asleep", or "have trouble falling asleep"]  at night, and I get nightmares. I never told my friends about that thing [about it], as [since] they would only laugh at me. I decided to post this here, because even though you won’t believe me anyway – at least, I wouldn’t believe it myself - I really wanted to share my story. Well, that’s all for now, I’m going to sleep '''[going to try to go to sleep, maybe? He just said he can't sleep]'''.

Why didn’t I go insane after that night? Thinking logically, I can say that if that thing had wanted to get me, I wouldn’t have been writing in this thread [“posting in this thread”, or maybe “writing this”]. It seems like that thing saw me only by chance, but then it got distracted by something else and forgot about me. At least, I want to think so.

And one final thing, the title would be better put as "The Office at Night", or somthething. The word "How" definitely has to be cut though.