LOL When I began dating my sweetheart 10yrs ago, he had a redish
brown mystery twig in his apartment too. He told me it had leaves
once and they were variegated.

I kept trying to convince him that it's dead and he kept insisting
it's still alive. 6 months later, that twig became 2 twigs, a year
later, 3 twigs, and so on. Eventually, we went on vacation and it
shriveled up so, I guess it really did die. We never figured out what
that thing was.