this might not be wrong. but it makes more since. Your while statement reads the array in as 0,1,2,3.... But you then set $x = pop(@delete_me); which removes the last element of @delete_me and sets it to $x. Doesnt make to much since to me. so lets rewrite it as.

foreach (@delete_me) {
      my $file = $_;
      unlink $file or die "Can't unlink $file : $!\n";
}
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or you can simple do

foreach (@delete_me) {
      unlink $_ or die "Can't unlink $file : $!\n";
}
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-bn