I get that, and it's very hard to manipulate time like that. What I can tell you is it happened due to the events on the plane. I mentioned about the woman who called all of us at the end right? Well, Atsushi had grown fond of my brother in law, Yurick, and asked to be sent home with him. Yurick was taken from a time before Jonathan and I, but after we'd met at the base and got out.

The one called Rachel accomplished putting Yurick and Atsushi back into our timeline instead of creating a divergent one like what would normally occur with something being added. However, she is likely responsible for Hiyori and Link being the way they are now. Jonathan and I may well be here now because we refused her offer.

If you're going to do something with this, please be careful. Manipulating time is very difficult, and I'm an incredibly skilled witch. If it works, your memories will be altered and you may change to account for it. For us, this was a few months, for you it sounds like a matter of years, if not decades.