Anonymous903 Hey just carefully read again what your wrote:
A screen protector which is pre-applied can't be laying around in the box, since it already is applied on your device. If you removed a piece of plastic already from your phone then congratulations, you just removed that pre-applied screen protector.
On all Nothing and CMF phones, the screen protectors are applied in the factories, since that's the case and they are all wrapped into thin paper, they don't come with additional shipping protection films applied over the screens as some other brands do.