...Right. [He clears his throat, fighting through the prickling sensation over his cheekbones.]

I'll just finish this paragraph.

It is temp— temporarily... whatever that word is. What time passes here does not pass in our home dimensions and so we all return to our native universes at the same moment as we left.

So basically it's saying where we are is completely unrelated to the time and locations we know of back home. That makes sense, since you said you've been here for about a year.