To begin with, no one really knows for sure what was causing it. But some people—scientists—thought it had to do with the asteroid.

That when it got blown to smithereens it made a mess. After nearly seven years, that mess got to Earth. It got sucked in by gravity and into the atmosphere, making a really gorgeous firework display that the whole world could see.

There were some larger chunks, but they don't matter. What matters is those smithereens. The rest of the mess had gotten blown into tinier smithereens of dust that were spread across the sky.

Everyone knew about the dust. The dust made pretty sunsets. What no one knew was that there was stuff in the dust: polyextremophiles. Little bacteriums that could survive in any environment.

And it likes water. It likes water A LOT. It replicates in water. Really fast. Like—ka-boom—one minute there was a smashed-up asteroid's worth of bacteria, and the next minute, the whole sky, our beautiful sky, was teeming with them. The clouds were poisoned.

When the rain touches human skin, there are a few moments when nothing happens. Then it starts: a rash that burns...that burns so badly you want to scratch the skin from your own body. Do that—and you won't be able to stop yourself—and you're just helping it along.

It doesn't care about the pain if it gets snarled up in your nerve endings. It is very aggressive. It attacks anything in it's path.

It's determined to get what it wants, and what it wants is your blood.

It's a really fussy eater. It only like your red blood cells. It replicates super fast, barging into your red blood cells, making more and more of itself until—POP! Your cells just burst.

The inside of your body is exploding, cell by cell.

Depending on how much you've been exposed—if, say, you got drenched from head to toe—the first blast of pain as the bacteria gorge on your insides can send you into catastrophic shock. If so, you'll die very quickly. If that happens to you, you're lucky. Same if you drink it.

If you get just a few drops on your skin, you will die more slowly. Though, if you are a baby or toddler, it will still be quick.

Weird thing is that animals are unaffected. Dogs, cats, fish, birds...they're all fine. 

No medicine on Earth can save you. There is no cure. At least that's what they believe. They advised acetaminophen for the pain. Aspirin will only make the bleeding worse.

It does nothing.

They said to quarantine victims for 24 hours. "Quarantine" makes it sound like you might come out alive. (You won't.) And I've never seen anyone last longer than three hours. Max.

I suppose the other way quarantining someone is a joke is that you can't get it from someone breathing on you. It can't get in through your lungs. To get it from a sick person, you have to actually get the sick person's blood on your skin. Or a dead person's blood. You could try chopping off the infected body part, but you might not survive amputation.

The only way to survive is to avoid it. That is, unless you have a certain special bacteria that neutralizes the killer rain one. But no one has met anyone like that, and besides, who would be crazy enough to find out? Sure, let me just walk into the KILLER RAIN to see if I'll DIE or NOT.

So at the moment, avoiding it is your best option. If you're reading this, good luck.